Indonesia must abolish the death penalty

Indonesia must abolish the death penalty

William Schabas, Jakarta

At the recent conference on capital punishment organized by
the European Union and the Philosophy Department of the
University of Indonesia, the attorney general provided an
astonishing statistic: From independence until 2003, a total of
only 15 people have been executed in accordance with Indonesian
law.

By comparison, countries like the United States, China, Iraq,
Iran and Vietnam each execute more than that number in a single
year. Even most European countries have executed more than 15
people since 1945, and they are much smaller than Indonesia,
although Europe has now virtually universally abolished the
practice.

The historic reluctance of Indonesia actually to impose the
death penalty must say something fundamentally positive about the
country's culture and values, and above all about the importance
its people place on the sanctity of human life.

It is, accordingly, rather disturbing that Indonesia seems to
be coming under the spell of its neighbors, like Singapore,
Malaysia and Vietnam, who now regularly resort to capital
punishment, particularly in the context of the so-called war on
drugs.

In his remarks, the attorney general sought to defend capital
punishment because of its alleged deterrent effect. But
scientific studies have shown, again and again, that the death
penalty offers no deterrent value whatsoever that is in any way
superior to that of a lengthy term of imprisonment.

Criminals, including drug pushers, are deterred by the
probability of getting caught, and not by variations in degree of
what are by any standards severe penalties. Better investigation
and better policing, not firing squads, are the way to deal with
drug traffickers.

In the United States, where the death penalty debate is at its
most sophisticated, those in favor have long ago dropped the
deterrence argument. They understand that it is desperately
flawed.

Instead, they rely on retribution, that is, the idea that
someone who has committed a crime should pay the price
irrespective of any benefits for society, for the victim or for
the offender. That Indonesia has only executed a handful of
criminals in half a century shows just how far is this approach
from the hearts of Indonesians.

Some try to argue that Islamic law mandates capital
punishment. Religious authorities seem to suggest the death
penalty as a mandatory sanction for huddud crimes, which consist
of adultery, apostasy and robbery. But nobody is realistically
suggesting that such strictures be followed in contemporary
societies.

For all other offenses, there is nothing mandatory with
respect to the death penalty in Islamic law. The matter is left
to the good judgment of modern, civil society. Indeed, the
fundamental devotion to the sanctity of human life that underpins
Islam would seem to militate in favor of restriction and
abolition of the death penalty.

Since 1948, when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
proclaimed that everyone shall have the right to life, the use of
capital punishment has declined constantly. While in the 1940s
most countries, including most of Europe, used the death penalty,
today a majority of states have abandoned the practice.

Only 62 states still retain capital punishment, compared with
132 in which it has either been abolished or has fallen into more
or less permanent disuse. Approximately three states each year
abolish capital punishment. At this rate, there will be universal
abolition within about two decades.

The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, now
accepted by nearly 100 countries, prohibits the death penalty
even for the most serious crimes of genocide, crimes against
humanity and war crimes.

Indonesia had a strong claim to membership within this
progressive and humanitarian legal tradition, that is, until
recently, when in August of this year it revived the archaic and
barbaric practice of state-sanctioned murder.

Indonesia is in a shrinking minority of states that have not
yet ratified the principal international human rights treaty, the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. While this
treaty does not require abolition of capital punishment as a
precondition, states cannot impose the death penalty except for
"the most serious crimes". Although murder is undoubtedly in this
category, the same cannot be said of drug trafficking.

Neighbors of Indonesia are setting themselves very much on the
outside of an evolving consensus in the international community.
Indonesia should resist being sucked into their hysterical
campaigns about drugs and violent crime.

The path toward democracy and development necessarily requires
the adoption of liberal and enlightened approaches to criminal
justice. Indonesia's traditional disdain for capital punishment
should lead it toward full abolition, and not in an opposite and
retrograde direction.

The writer is director of the Irish Centre for Human Rights.