On 5 December, Uzbekistan’s senators approved the accession of their country to the Second Optional Protocol to the International Pact on Civil and Political Rights, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty.

Uzbek President Islam Karimov signed the ratification into law on 12 December. The documents have yet to be filed with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

This is the end of a legislative process launched in August 2005, when the president signed a decree abolishing the death penalty in Uzbekistan. Since then, all legislation providing for capital punishment has been amended. The country’s Legislative House passed the bill that makes Uzbekistan a state party to the Second Optional Protocol on 30 October 2008.

After Argentina and Chile in September, and Honduras in April, Uzbekistan becomes the fourth country in 2008 to join the only international treaty that enshrines the irreversible abolition of the death penalty in international law.