死刑废止之路新发展的全球考察

Developments on the Road to Abolition of the Death Penalty a Worldwide Perspective

本文的目的是将死刑废止的新发展置于国际背景之下并进行相关论述,证明一种"新的对抗态势"正在发挥作用,并已在过去20年间大幅增加了废除死刑国家的数量,而这样的国家目前在世界上占明显多数。各国废除死刑的途径、从保留死刑到废除死刑的速度、相关的政治进程以及用以替代死刑的刑罚都将予以讨论。

Since I was first invited to China in 2000 by the Foreign Ministry of the People's Republic of China as members of the British Foreign Secretary's Death Penalty Advisory Panel,I have witnessed a transformation in the debate on the reform of the death penalty in your country.Where once international meetings were characterised by a vigorous defence of China's then death penalty policy,with only a few concessions to the need for reform,the last few years have witnessed a distinct change in the discourse,evidenced by the open exchange of views in meetings of the kind in which we are presently engaged on death penalty reform in China.The subject has been opened up to research;lively discussion has emerged within academic,governmental and judicial circles on limiting the scope of capital punishment and the appropriate procedures and practices for putting it into effect;and the return of the review of all death penalty verdicts to the Supreme People's Court has been of particular significance so to ensure more consistency,less variability,and greater parsimony in the types of crime and numbers of persons who are in practice executed — in fact to replace former practices with a policy aimed to impose the death penalty 'strictly,cautiously and fairly …on a tiny number of serious criminal offenders