India has abstained\nfrom voting on a General Assembly resolution aimed at examining options to end\ntrade in goods used for capital punishment and torture, saying it is\n\u201cunacceptable\u201d to place death penalty on par with torture. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The 193-member UN General Assembly Friday adopted the resolution \u2018Towards torture-free trade: examining the feasibility, scope and parameters for possible common international standards’ by a recorded vote of 81 in favour to 20 against, with 44 abstentions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
By the draft’s\nterms, the Assembly requested the Secretary-General to seek the views of Member\nStates on the feasibility and possible scope of a range of options to establish\ncommon international standards for the import, export and transfer of goods\nused for “capital punishment, torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading\ntreatment or punishment.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n
India abstained\nfrom voting on the resolution, with First Secretary in India’s Permanent\nMission to the UN Paulomi Tripathi, in the explanation of vote, saying that\nincorporating capital punishment into the scope of this resolution “raises\nconcerns that it may be an attempt to place it on par with torture.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n
She stressed that\nIndia remains firmly committed to prevent torture and other cruel, inhuman and\ndegrading treatment or punishment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We firmly believe that freedom from torture is a human right which must be respected and protected under all circumstances.”
She asserted that India strongly believes that torture is a crime and “therefore, unlawful.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the other hand,\nin countries where capital punishment is statutorily provided for, it is\n“exercised after following the due process of law,” she said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Every state has the sovereign right to determine its own legal system and appropriate legal penalties. Any implication that capital punishment is being treated on par with torture is unacceptable to my delegation, as in India capital punishment is a statutory provision, even though it is used in the rarest of rare cases,” Tripathi said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“In view of these substantive and procedural inconsistencies India was not able to support the resolution and abstained during the voting,” she said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
She told the General Assembly that in India, acts of torture are punishable offence under various provisions of the Indian Penal Code and the Indian judiciary also serves as a bulwark against any such violations of human rights. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tripathi\nfurther added that the present draft resolution seeks to establish a link\nbetween trade in goods and the criminal acts of torture. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“It\nis apparent that the multilateral trade system is already under stress. In such\na situation, attempts at trade restrictions in a selective manner, as proposed\nby the resolution, is likely to raise further concerns regarding implications\non the international trading system,” she said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Further, before starting a process of this nature, the obligations undertaken by different countries under the World Trade Organization and other forums also needs to be carefully looked into, Tripathi said voicing concern that the current process has not afforded any such opportunity for the Member States. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The\nsubject matter of torture will be given full consideration by UN Member States\nin the forthcoming GA session and this will include a range of appropriate\nmeasures to be taken to prevent and prohibit the production, trade, export,\nimport and use of equipment that has no practical use other than for the\npurpose of torture, Tripathi said. \n\n“This current resolution may start a\nduplicative parallel process related to \u2018goods’ used for torture and capital\npunishment and create ambiguity by conflating different issues,” she said.\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
India has abstained from voting on a General Assembly resolution aimed at examining options to end trade in goods used for capital punishment and torture, saying it is \u201cunacceptable\u201d to place death penalty on par with torture. The 193-member UN General Assembly Friday adopted the resolution \u2018Towards torture-free trade: examining the feasibility, scope and parameters […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":3030,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[58],"class_list":["post-3029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-affairs-articles","tag-international-current-affairs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3029"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3029\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3420,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3029\/revisions\/3420"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}