UN International Covenants and Australia's approach to them

For those interested in what interational covenants have to say on the use of the death penalty here are three UN sites for your information:

. United Nations Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

. OPTIONAL PROTOCOL to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

. 2nd Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

The Age is following the story of just how much the Howard Government did or did'nt do to save Van Nguyen. The more I hear and read the more I realise what a flawed approach was taken by Howard and Downer. Here is an excerpt from the The Age report today:

"Yesterday, a senior Victorian QC attacked the Federal Government over claims it did everything possible to save Nguyen's life, saying ministers ignored legal advice that backed the possibility of extraditing him to Australia.

Peter Vickery, QC, said the Government could have initiated an extradition process. "… the ministers of our Commonwealth were intransigent and refused to alter their chosen course, offering no rational reason for doing so," he said.

Prime Minister John Howard yesterday maintained that Australia could not alter the attitude of its neighbours towards the death penalty and said he pushed strongly on behalf of Nguyen.

"We have to be realistic about what can be achieved," Mr Howard told the ABC.

He also said that it ought to be recognised that Nguyen was a convicted drug trafficker — "he was carrying an enormous amount of heroin and if that had got onto the streets of Australia, it could have done a lot of damage to young Australians".

Mr Howard said he was against capital punishment and would oppose its reintroduction in Australia. While he would always lobby for a death sentence to be waived on an Australian overseas, it was unrealistic to suggest that the Government should complain as loudly about a death sentence being carried out on Saddam Hussein as it did in relation to Nguyen.

Labor foreign affairs spokesman Kevin Rudd said there was a lot more Australia could do to oppose capital punishment.

"Australia must, with the Europeans, work through the United Nations to abolish the death penalty universally," he said. Australian policy had to be consistent — "whether we are talking about individuals in Iraq or Indonesia or elsewhere".