Death penalty abolition on conference agenda
The seventh world congress against the death penalty will be held in Brussels from 26 February to 1 March.
The biennial conference gathers together abolitionist activists and will be chaired by French lawyer and abolitionist campaigner Robert Badinter.
The 1,500 participants will include many lawyers speaking across five Brussels locations, but mainly at the Egmont Palace, near the Palais de Justice.
Strategies
Among this year’s themes are abolitionist strategies and how to prevent the resurgence of the death penalty.
Also for discussion are ‘the private sector and the death penalty’, ‘women and the death penalty’, ‘LGBT and the death penalty’, and ‘bar associations in the fight against the death penalty’.
For the past 20 years, the use of the death penalty has been gradually declining. Yet 20,000 people are still on death row in the 55 countries that apply the death penalty (on average, 364 people per country).
There are 106 abolitionist countries, six that apply the death penalty only in exceptional circumstances, such as war or revolution – and 31 de facto abolitionists, that have not carried out executions for at least ten years.
Registration to the congress is free, but mandatory.