Council of Europe demands end to executions

The Council of Europe parliamentary assembly has threatened to remove the US and Japan as observers at the organisation unless they stop all executions ‘‘without delay’’ and move to repeal the death penalty, officials said.

The resolution passed by the 602-member assembly late yesterday said the two countries should lose their observer status at Europe’s 43-nation human rights organisation unless progress is made on abolishing executions by January 1, 2003.

Removing the US and Japan as observers would have little practical effect, but would be embarrassing - particularly for the US which was voted off the UN Human Rights Commission last month.

The vote comes in the wake of the executions in the US earlier this month of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh and convicted murderer and drug trafficker Juan Raul Garza.

The assembly’s resolution said the countries should ‘‘institute without delay a moratorium on executions’’ and improve immediately conditions on death row.

Capital punishment in the US became a key sticking point during the visit of President George W. Bush to Europe two weeks ago.

Critics questioned the effectiveness and the morality of the death penalty.

Under Council of Europe rules, member states in the organisation cannot have the death penalty in their legal codes in peace time because it is deemed to be a gross violation of human rights.

The abolition of capital punishment has been a precondition for full membership since 1994.

The US, Japan, Mexico and Canada have been observers at the Council of Europe since 1996.

The organisation is best known for its 1952 European Convention of Human Rights which is binding on its member states.