Since January 1993, Amnesty International has documented 24 executions of child offenders worldwide - one in Democratic Republic of Congo, one in Nigeria, one in Yemen, two in Pakistan, three in Iran, and 16 in the United States. Pakistan and Yemen have since legislated to abolish such use of the death penalty, as did the world's main executing country, China, in 1997.
The USA reserved the right to execute child offenders when it ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, even though that treaty contains a non-derogable prohibition on such executions. The relevant expert UN body has found the US "reservation" to be invalid, but the US has ignored its finding. UN bodies have also affirmed that the prohibition has become a principle of customary international law, binding on all countries regardless of which treaties they have or have not ratified.
"Perhaps this issue provides the starkest example of how far the USA is from the progressive force for human rights it so often claims to be," Amnesty International concluded. Since 1990, 191 countries have ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child, one of the treaties banning the use of the death penalty against children who were under 18 years old at the time of the crime. Only Somalia and the USA have failed to ratify.
*** Please see Amnesty International's two new reports:
Indecent and internationally illegal, the execution of child offenders in
the USA, available as the full 105-page report or an abridged version of 29
pages, at
http://www.web.amnesty.org/ai.nsf/recent/amr511432002
and
Children and the death penalty: Executions worldwide since 1990, at
http://www.web.amnesty.org/ai.nsf/recent/act500072002
The USA reserved the right to execute child offenders when it ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, even though that treaty contains a non-derogable prohibition on such executions. The relevant expert UN body has found the US "reservation" to be invalid, but the US has ignored its finding. UN bodies have also affirmed that the prohibition has become a principle of customary international law, binding on all countries regardless of which treaties they have or have not ratified.
"Perhaps this issue provides the starkest example of how far the USA is from the progressive force for human rights it so often claims to be," Amnesty International concluded. Since 1990, 191 countries have ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child, one of the treaties banning the use of the death penalty against children who were under 18 years old at the time of the crime. Only Somalia and the USA have failed to ratify.
*** Please see Amnesty International's two new reports:
Indecent and internationally illegal, the execution of child offenders in
the USA, available as the full 105-page report or an abridged version of 29
pages, at
http://www.web.amnesty.org/ai.nsf/recent/amr511432002
and
Children and the death penalty: Executions worldwide since 1990, at
http://www.web.amnesty.org/ai.nsf/recent/act500072002