nytimes chinese court mistrial death penality

First of all, there is the weight of a cultural tradition that supposedly places less importance on the individual person than does the Western “humanist” tradition. But it also includes reflection on the particular barriers in the way of abolition in the case of China. These concern the limits of a conception of justice seeking retribution and the utilitarian critique of the effectiveness of the death penalty. His argument broadly took up Western themes that have become classic among abolitionists. In the spring of 2000, during the debate on the “morality of the death penalty” held at Peking University, this distinctly minority approach was represented in particular by Qiu Xinglong, a Law Professor 4. The new spirit of debateĦA first change of great significance was the emergence of an openly abolitionist approach. I will then attempt, through a presentation of some concrete cases, to indicate how the burden of the Maoist legacy continues to bear on the penal situation in China, and more particularly on the application of the death penalty. I will begin by characterising the new spirit that presides over the current discussions.

In December of the same year, an international symposium on the death penalty was jointly organised by the Institute of Legal Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the Danish Centre for Human Rights and the University of Xiangtan (Hunan), a meeting which allowed for the airing of broader international perspectives.ĥMy approach in this article is two-pronged. This initial debate, which dealt especially with principles, was followed by another, in November 2002, based on one particular case. An entirely new situation has come about in recent times (the year 2000 seems to mark a turning-point, as that was the moment in China itself when serious discussion of the death penalty began, a debate that is led by a new generation of legal scholars 3.ĤIn April 2000, a debate was organised by the Law Institute at Peking University on “the morality of the death penalty”. 3This situation regularly gives rise to criticism by the international community that makes an appeal to ethics and human rights, without always being well informed about the historical and cultural conditions in the case of China.

Nytimes chinese court mistrial death penality