Failures in the recent justice system in Indonesia represent deeper flaws in the international violation of human rights.
It is often forgotten that the death penalty still exists in various parts of the world. Capital punishment doesn’t make headlines as much as it arguably should, and Europe largely turns a blind eye to the murder of citizens by foreign States. The last executions in the UK were by hanging and took place in 1964, just before capital punishment was abolished for murder (in 1965 in Great Britain ad 1973 in Northern Ireland). The rest of Europe follows a similar trajectory – in France, the last execution took place by guillotine in 1977, and in 1978 the Spanish constitution outlawed capital punishment. Yet still the fact exists that capital punishment is very much legal, supported, and is used in various parts of the world.
The death sentence holds no understandable purpose it does not evoke justice and the continued use of such methods and violation of human rights in order to instate the penal system has ramifications for us all in the international arena. This is a fact, whether we like it or not. Statistically there are 59 countries where the death penalty is permitted. In 2013, 22 countries around the world were known to have carried out executions and at least 57 have imposed death sentences. The outliers make a peculiar list including: India, Japan, Nigeria, Uganda, Botswana, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Kuwait, Oman, Lebanon, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Iraq and the United States.
The United States hit headlines last year when the botched execution of Clayton Lockett on the 29th April 2014 took 43 minutes to end his life via lethal injection. The official autopsy indicated that the execution team went to great lengths to try to kill him – recording evidence of 16 needle puncture marks in numerous locations across his body. In the aftermath of this case then came the strange and hypocritical search by state authorities for a more ‘human execution’. Leading to Oklahoma’s approval of using nitrogen gas in executions as a quicker and more efficient way to end an individual’s life. The methods of execution vary in countries worldwide and include: Lethal injection, electrocution (this is a secondary method for two US states if Lethal Injection fails), hanging, firing squad and beheading. The gruesome list makes up the reality of the ultimate penalties of the justice system in various sovereign states worldwide yet the reality remains: there is no humane way to end someone’s life not even one which is ‘quicker’ or ‘more efficient’. Opinion on the death penalty in the US is varied and support is equally met with opposition. Although the death penalty is legal and used regularly in some states (Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri to name but a few) others, such as New Jersey, have made recent steps to outlaw such procedure.
Indonesia gained a huge amount of recent press when two convicted Australian drug traffickers were executed by firing squad. As such, the intimate details of the procedure were circulated online, in which a total of eight individuals were executed. Images of their coffins were even released in the press in some form of bizarre public spectacle. This marked the end point of a yearlong campaign for clemency for the prisoners, to no prevail. There were clearly apparent flaws in the case of the Australian drug traffickers, yes, but these flaws resonate even deeper into the flaws and the failure of international human rights laws and an international justice system.
Human rights laws and norms have been internalised and embraced in Europe in recent decades and the concepts that individuals right to life, liberty, and security are upheld and respected are paramount to European conceptions of democracy. Yet the suggestion here is not a triumph of Europe against the rest of the world, the execution of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran’s by the Indonesian state, and the continued executions, which take place in the US and various other countries worldwide, fails us all. It is a stark reminder that state sovereignty is ultimate and final. In spite of the pleas by various authorities to spare the individual’s their life, including emotional statements by the Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott. The international arena failed to influence the ultimate decision, and for that we have all been unsuccessful. Ideas and hopes for universal human rights are an illusion in the face of individual state sovereignty and that needs to change. Campaigners against the death penalty are as important now as ever. We need to start talking about these issues.
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