Joint Open Letter | Open Letter to President Yoon Suk-yeol of the Republic of Korea on the Issue of Abolishing the Death Penalty

Dear Mr. President,
During the fourth cycle of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of the Republic of Korea on January 26, 2023, 31 States^[1] made recommendations to abolish the death penalty or to ratify the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty. Much like the recommendations made by 26 States during the third U.S.R. of South Korea on November 9, 2017^[2], the recommendations from the fourth UPR reflect once again the growing consensus within the international community regarding the abolition of the death penalty. Therefore, we reiterate our call upon the Republic of Korea to abolish capital punishment, which has not been carried out for 25 years since December 30, 1997.

We also note with appreciation that the Republic of Korea voted in favor of United Nations General Assembly Resolution 77/222 on December 15, 2022, which calls upon States that still maintain the death penalty to establish a moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty, and to consider ratifying the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty.

The global trend toward the abolition of the death penalty is unmistakable^[3]. When the Republic of Korea carried out its last execution at the end of 1997, 102 countries had abolished the death penalty in law or in practice (with 61 countries having abolished it for all crimes)^[4]. By the end of 2007, when the Republic of Korea became abolitionist in practice, the number of countries that had abolished the death penalty in law or in practice surged to 134 (with 91 countries having abolished it for all crimes)^[5]. By the end of 2021, this figure further increased to 144 (with 108 countries having abolished it for all crimes)^[6].

This global trend is also reflected in voting patterns at the United Nations General Assembly. In December 2007, the General Assembly adopted its first resolution calling for a moratorium on the use of the death penalty, Resolution 62/149, with 106 votes in favor, 46 against, and 34 abstentions^[7]. In December 2020, Resolution 75/183 was adopted with 123 votes in favor, 38 against, and 24 abstentions, with the Republic of Korea voting in favor of this biennial resolution for the first time^[8]. In December 2022, Resolution 77/222 was adopted with 125 votes in favor, 37 against, and 22 abstentions—the highest number of affirmative votes in history^[9].

We wish to remind the Republic of Korea that the use of the death penalty is inconsistent with its international legal obligations to respect fundamental human rights, including the right to life. There are currently 59 death row inmates in the Republic of Korea, including Won Eon-shik, who has been on death row for nearly 30 years since November 23, 1993. Under these circumstances, the Republic of Korea may also be in violation of its international legal obligations to prevent torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment. The phenomenon of "death row syndrome"—referring to the psychological effects experienced by prisoners due to prolonged conditions of harsh confinement while awaiting their impending execution—recently re-emphasized by United Nations human rights experts, has consistently been recognized as a form of inhuman treatment^[10]. As early as 1989, the European Court of Human Rights prohibited an unconditional extradition request from the United States on this very ground in the case of Soering v. United Kingdom^[11].

We must recognize that no criminal justice system is infallible. In cases such as the Yakchon Ogeori taxi driver murder case in Iksan and the 8th of the 10 Hwasong serial murder cases, police, prosecutors, and judges all failed to prevent miscarriages of justice. While a wrongfully convicted person who has been exonerated can be released from prison at any time, it is impossible to bring someone back from the dead. As Blackstone famously observed, it is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer; surely, then, it is better that ten guilty persons escape the death penalty than that one innocent person lose their life.

We also note that since 1999, successive generations of National Assembly members in the Republic of Korea, including the current session, have introduced a total of 9 bills to abolish the death penalty^[12], alongside a motion in 2018 to ratify the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty^[13]. Although the Constitutional Court twice previously upheld the constitutionality of the death penalty—by a 7-2 vote in the 1996 case 95 Hun-Ba 1 and by a 5-4 vote in the 2010 case 2008 Hun-Ga 23—the Constitutional Court now has the opportunity to declare the death penalty unconstitutional in the pending case 2019 Hun-Ba 59, thereby paving the way toward its abolition.

We urge the Republic of Korea to take the following actions immediately to advance the process of abolishing the death penalty, in alignment with its stance on the United Nations General Assembly resolutions calling for a moratorium on the use of capital punishment:

• Formally declare a moratorium on executions;
• Commute death sentences to terms of imprisonment;
• Abolish or amend all provisions prescribing the death penalty for various criminal offenses, with a view to abolishing capital punishment for all crimes entirely;
• Ratify the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty.

We also urge the Republic of Korea to cease the deportation and extradition of individuals to countries that retain the death penalty, including the United States^[14], Japan, China^[15], and North Korea^[16]. Such acts of deportation and extradition not only violate the principle of non-refoulement but also risk exposing individuals to the imposition of the death penalty. In the 2002 case of Roger Judge v. Canada, the Human Rights Committee stated: "The exceptions provided for in article 6, paragraphs 2 to 6, of the Covenant are applicable only to States parties that have not abolished the death penalty. As to States parties that have abolished the death penalty, they have an obligation not to expose any person to the real risk of its application. Thus, they may not deport or extradite a person within their jurisdiction if it is reasonably foreseeable that the person will be sentenced to death, without ensuring that the death penalty will not be carried out^[17]."

Sincerely,

Co-signing Organizations

Organizations

• ACAT Belgique
• ACAT France
• ACAT Germany
• Anti-Death Penalty Asia Network (ADPAN)
• Arakan Rohingya National Organisation (ARNO)
• Asia Democracy Network (ADN)
• Balay Alternative Legal Advocates for Development in Mindanaw, Inc. (BALAOD Mindanaw)
• Centro para la Apertura y el Desarrollo de América Latina (CADAL)
• Citizens' Alliance for North Korean Human Rights (NKHR)
• Commission for the Disappeared and Victims of Violence (KontraS)
• Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide
• Death Penalty Focus
• Federal Association of Vietnamese Refugees in the Federal Republic of Germany
• Forum marocain pour la vérité et la justice (FMVJ)
• German Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (GCADP)
• Human Rights Watch (HRW)
• Human Asia
• Instituto de Derecho Penal Europeo e Internacional de la Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha (UCLM)
• International CURE
• Italian Federation for Human Rights (FIDU - Federazione Italiana Diritti Umani)
• Judicial Reform Foundation (JRF)
• Legal Awareness Watch Pakistan (LAW)
• Lifespark
• Nessuno tocchi Caino (Hands Off Cain)
• Norwegian Helsinki Committee (NHC)
• Regroupement des Jeunes Africains pour la Démocratie et le Développement section Togo (REJADD- TOGO)
• SALAM for Democracy and Human Rights (SALAM DHR)
• Southern African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (SACCORD)
• Taiwan Association for Human Rights / Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty (TAEDP)
• Transitional Justice Working Group (TJWG)
• Witness to Innocence (WTI)
• World Coalition Against the Death Penalty (WCADP)

Individuals

• Lord Alton of Liverpool / Independent Crossbench Member of the House of Lords & Co-chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on North Korea
• Marzuki Darusman / Former UN Special Rapporteur / Member of the Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea
• Sonja Biserko / Former Member of the Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea & Current President of the Helsinki Human Rights Committee in Serbia
• Tomás Ojea-Quintana / Former UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea

(As of March 27, 2023)

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