thsmunhumanrightscapitalpunishmentkenya08


 * Country:** Kenya
 * Topic:** Capital Punishment
 * Committee:** GA Human Rights
 * Name:** Anuj P.
 * Period:** 0

Capital Punishment - Kenya
I. __A BRIEF BACKGROUND OF THE TOPIC__ When someone is murdered, there is always a murderer. People assume this murderer is inhumane and beastlike, they are the antagonist and they need punishment. Remember the saying "an eye for an eye" from Hammurabi's Code, made by the Babylonians in the 1760 B.C. People might say that once a man has taken someone else's life, then the law should take his life. In other words, people who commit notorious crimes should be severally punished by the cost of their own lives. Some punishments might be hanging, guillotine, firing squad, or modern versions like the electric chair and the painless lethal injections. The reason the do capital punishment is that the murderer has to be punished for his sins, and it also strikes fear into people who think about committing a crime. However, capital punishment interferes with the "Right to Live." The murderer is still a human and all humans have the right to live, so this is a major world-wide issue.  <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Console', Monaco, monospace"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial Black', Gadget, sans-serif"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 80%; FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif">__II. UNITED NATIONS INVOLVEMENT__ The UN is almost unable to resolve this issue. First of all, the UN respects countries' thoughts and beliefs. The UN cannot simply abolish capital punishment, but its efforts convinced many nations. In 1945, the UN started to make the Declaration of Human Rights, which was later revised in 1948. In the 3rd article it says "Everyone has the right to life, liberty, and security of person" which relates to all humans. Out of 192 nations, 135 signed the document, while 62 nations did not because they still believe in death sentence. The UN made more than 50 resolutions for capital punishment, in which more than half failed while other convinced more nations to sign. One of the solutions is the Convention of the Rights of the Child. The convention states that people under the age of 18 cannot be put under capital punishment. This is a great solution but still when the prisoner is 18, he dies on his birthday. The abolishment of capital punishment has to be resolved by individual nations because each nation has different thoughts and ideas for the death sentence.

<span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Console', Monaco, monospace"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial Black', Gadget, sans-serif"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 80%; FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif">__III. COUNTRY POLICY AND INVOLVEMENT__ Kenya is against capital punishment. Kenyan leaders have met and concluded that "we are committed to abolishing the death penalty. The death sentence is a violation of the right to life." Back in the 1970's Kenya was for capital punishment and said that death penalty would deter crime, but research showed that nation leaders found no downturn in crime. Already 11 countries got rid of death sentence, and Kenya has to do the same. Then in 1982, the president stopped issuing death warrants. All prisoners that are on death row have been changed to life sentence.

<span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Console', Monaco, monospace"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial Black', Gadget, sans-serif"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif"> <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif">__IV. SOLUTIONS__ Capital punishment is a rising problem for many nations. The total abolishment of it cannot happen; the argument is too strong to be vanished. Kenya feels that since it abolished capital punishment, many people have been saved from being killed. Now some people might say "once a killer, always a killer" but that isn’t necessarily true. They argue that if prisoners can run away and start murdering, raping, etc. again. People can reform and be a better person. We think that having prisoners do labor works is beneficial to the economy of the country and teaches prisoners work ethics. If prisoners try to escape we will have to stop them. That is were Kenya's new solution comes in, the Security Fence Defense Measures (SFDM). While prisoners are doing work outside the jail and happen to try to run away thee SFDM stops them. SFDM adds a steel electric fence with barbed wire to the perimeter of the jail and puts spikes outside if a blackout occurs. This adds new meaning to "you caused your own death." One more solution is about changing the ammunition of the guard called Guard Defensive Firearms. GDF adds towers to jails and guards in them with snipers. The snipers will be lower caliber plastic rounds. Plastic won’t kill you, but it will hurt like hell. If prisoners get to cocky we can always fire on at them. Then the prisoner will have to walk back to the infirmary, since plastic doesn’t hurt that much rather than metal which will impair his leg. Kenya hopes this new solutions will help reinforce the idea of reformation of prisoners.

__Bibliography__ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_Hammurabi http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/node/1471 [|http://deathpenaltyinformation.blogspot.com/2007/04/kenya-calls-to-abolish-death-penalt...] UN document: International covenant on civil and political rights http://www.un.org/Pubs/chronicle/2004/issue4/0404p29.html [|en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_the_Rights_of_the_Child] <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif"> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_Human_Rights