US faces criticism after voting ‘no’ on UN resolution nixing death penalty

WASHINGTON (WPDE) — The United States voted against a United Nations resolution condemning the death penalty Tuesday, in a move that sparked criticism from some LGBT activists and advocacy groups.

The Human Rights Council measure, which passed anyway, placed a blanket moratorium on capital punishment. Twenty-seven nations voted for it; 13, including the U.S., Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, voted against. Seven abstained.

Though it applied to all cases, its preamble included the disclosure that the penalty is often applied disproportionately to “poor or economically vulnerable individuals, foreign nationals, individuals exercising the rights to freedom of religion or belief and freedom of expression, and the discriminatory use of the death penalty against persons belonging to racial and ethnic minorities, its discriminatory use based on gender or sexual orientation, and its use against individuals with mental or intellectual disabilities.”

Some media coverage has zeroed in on the measure’s inclusion of LGBTQ rights — the first time such a resolution has done so.

Advocacy groups, in turn, have painted the U.S.’s vote as one enabling the murder of members of the LGBTQ community.

The Human Rights Council called it “a United Nations resolution condemning the death penalty as a punishment for consensual same-sex relationships.”

“Ambassador Haley has failed the LGBTQ community by not standing up against the barbaric use of the death penalty to punish individuals in same-sex relationships,” Ty Cobb, director of HRC Global, said in a statement. “While the U.N. Human Rights Council took this crucially important step, the Trump/Pence administration failed to show leadership on the world stage by not championing this critical measure. This administration’s blatant disregard for human rights and LGBTQ lives around the world is beyond disgraceful.”

However, the United States’ stance is little different than it was under former President Barack Obama.

In 2014, when a similar resolution came before the Human Rights Council, the U.S. abstained from the vote.

Though that measure did not explicitly mention LGBTQ parties, then-U.N. Ambassador Keith Harper proclaimed at the time that “international law does not prohibit capital punishment.”

The death penalty is legal in 31 U.S. states, making the nation one of the only industrialized countries to allow its citizens to be executed.