“Every measure aimed at abolishing the death penalty is a significant step forward for human rights, particularly the right to life”. Inspired by this conviction, the Permanent Mission of Italy in Geneva, together with Switzerland, France, Belgium, Zambia, and Chile, organized a side event dedicated to the impact of capital punishment on children’s rights.
Co-sponsored by the European Union, the Council of Europe, OHCHR, as well as Mongolia, Benin, Mexico and Moldova, the event highlighted how the use of capital punishment leads to intolerable violations of the human rights of those condemned to death, particularly minors. Children whose parents have been executed or sentenced to death, in fact, are often victims of social stigma, discrimination, and can find themselves in very difficult social and economic conditions. High-ranking personalities such as the President of the international association “Together against the death penalty” (ECPM), representatives of OHCHR and the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, as well as Professor Emeritus Marco Sassoli discussed this issue.
Organised in the margins of the 60th session of the UN Human Rights Council, the initiative is complementary to the resolution on the issue of the death penalty negotiated at the UN in New York, which Italy actively supports. It is also a defining theme of our country’s candidacy for the 2026-2028 Human Rights Council mandate.
“The initiative contributed to strengthening diplomatic, academic and civil society engagement in the fight against the death penalty and to developing a comprehensive and long-term analysis to protect children from the impact of the death penalty,” said the Permanent Representative in Geneva, Ambassador Vincenzo Grassi. “We are convinced that all measures aimed at abolishing the death penalty must also reaffirm the centrality of human rights and we are strongly determined to defend and guarantee the right to life, at all times and in all circumstances,” Ambassador Grassi concluded.
