I. Introduction 1. Overview OSCE participating States have made a number of commitments regarding the death penalty, although there are no specific OSCE commitments requiring the abolition of this type of punishment. In the Vienna Document,1 participating States agreed that the death penalty could be imposed only for the most serious crimes and only in line with international commitments. Moreover, states agreed to consider the potential abolition of the death penalty, to exchange information toward that end, and to make information on the use of the death penalty available to the public.2 In the light of these commitments and its mandate, the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) monitors the trends and developments regarding human rights standards and practices among OSCE participating States and their application of the death penalty. The findings are presented each year in the Background Paper on the Status of the Death Penalty in the OSCE Area. The background paper is based on the information provided by participating States, in the form of responses to ODIHR questionnaires. The information from their responses has been included in the present report, to the extent possible, and is supplemented with information from international and regional human rights bodies, non-governmental organizations and media reports. The questionnaire was sent out on 20 April 2016 to all 57 OSCE participating States. The deadline for replies was 20 June 2016. In order to streamline the production of this report and related follow-up activities, the reporting period for the 2016 background paper was moved earlier than previous years and, for this document, covers developments from 1 July 2015 to 31 March 2016, a period of nine months. Future editions of this document will cover a 12-month period, from April to March. ODIHR commends 1  Concluding Document of the Vienna Meeting (Third Follow-up Meeting to the Helsinki Conference, 15 January 1989, Vienna), paragraph 24, <http://www.osce.org/mc/16262> . 2  Document of the Copenhagen Meeting of the Conference on the Human Dimension of the OSCE, 29 June 1990, Copenhagen, paragraph 17.7 and 17.8, <http://www.osce.org/odihr/elections/14304> . 5