The Council of Europe and the death penalty : the relationship of state sovereignty and human rights

Abstract

This study investigates the processes of the removal of the death penalty within the Council of Europe and its Member States. An evaluation is conducted of the relationship of sovereignty and the death penalty in this region, and the significance of the Council's attempts to penetrate this relationship is analysed. The foremost motivation of this study is to understand how solid the removal of the death penalty is, and to reveal what can be learned from the legislative activity of the Member States and the various Parliamentary Assembly and Committee of Ministers' enactments, and the case-law of the European Commission of Human Rights and the European Court of Human Rights. It is my hope that this study will help ensure that the death penalty remains removed from this European region