Dr. Azab Alaziz Alhashemi
It came in the definition of jurists that international criminal law is: a branch of the Criminal Code, which regulates the international character of national criminal problems, and therefore this law falls within to determine the jurisdiction of national criminal courts for crimes committed in a foreign country and what should the applicable law be, and determine the extradition rules of criminals. All along with the extent of implementation of the Criminal rule against a foreigner within the territory of the state, the permissibility of international cooperation in the fight against some crimes … and the extent of state compliance with international agreements on criminalization and punishment.
Accordingly, the death penalty in this law is specialized in dealing with international crimes, noting that the matter of the death penalty had been raised by the Rome Statute as a punishment for the crimes contained therein.
The two statutes of the Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda did not include any text about the death penalty, unlike the situation for the Nuremberg court which sentenced to death twelve international criminals, but the jurisprudence which advocates the death penalty goes to the extent that the general trend in the international community calling for the abolition of the death penalty from the domestic laws, and some countries have abolished it from their legislations, but the matter is considered very dangerous and different for the international crimes, especially for the serious ones such as war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.
In this concern, we believe that criminal thought is interested in looking for a quick and cheap tool in the implementation of the death penalty in states that adopted it in its legislation, so we will deal with the means that carry out the death penalty along with the most common ways in international criminal law.
The common methods of executions are as follows:
- Execution by hanging: the death penalty by hanging is implemented on a small scale in several US states. It was, indeed, the normal way the implementation the death penalty in England before the abolition of executions in 1965, and it is still in force in the “Commonwealth” countries, Sudan, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Burma, Hong Kong, and the former Czechoslovakia, Afghanistan, Mauritius, Tanzania, the Republic of South Africa.
- Execution by guillotine: This was the method used in France before the abolition of the death penalty in 1981, and it is still applied in Dahomey, West Africa, Vietnam, and Laos, though the legislator in Laos allows the implementation of the death penalty on civilians by firing squad rather than the guillotine.
- Electric chair execution: this method of execution is used in most US states, the Philippines, and China.
- Execution by firing squad: the death penalty by firing squad is implemented in states where its military law includes provision for the death penalty, as is the case in the Arab Republic of Egypt, Morocco, Ivory Coast, Central African Republic, Togo, El Salvador, Chile, Guatemala, Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia, Greece.
In the search field for alternative means of carrying out the death penalty, all were looking for tools and methods with lighter pain and more speed in bringing death – which brings on methods that are not commonly used, as is the case with the previous means of execution (hanging, the guillotine, the electric chair, firing squad), and these alternative methods are gas asphyxiation and lethal injection.
- The method of gas asphyxiation is the use of suffocating gas leaking from vents and pipes inside the room called the Chamber of gas, and take into account the gas used has an effective and rapid effect on the respiratory system, and sometimes some desirable smells are added to this gas to avoid the inhaled repulsive action for the convicted person, as is the case in California in America where it is suffocating gas perfuming.
- The method of lethal injection is injecting the sentenced vein with a drug which is a mixture of narcotics and other materials that have a deadly effect, this way is designed to cause a rapid loss of consciousness to the sentenced person before he dies.
The use of lethal injection has raised sensation in the US states on the effectiveness of the death penalty – in general – to deter criminals, as there is no feasibility of death which is not feared by criminals, whereby the sanction is equal with the case of the patient death under anesthesia during surgery.
Sources:
It was used as a set of international laws and research.