国际法是否禁止死刑的适用

一、引言死刑是人类历史上最古老的刑罚之一。“杀人者偿命”这一理念在我国不仅由来已久,而且是深入人心。这种极刑常常视为替苦主申冤,为社会伸张正义,实现公正的重要手段;另一方面,也一直被当作吓阻那些严重犯罪行为的最有效手段之一。无论如何,人类文明已经发展到了很高的层次,人类社会也日趋复杂,远非古代社会的社会状态那么简单。相应地,死刑作为处罚罪犯的刑罚就日益显得不人道,甚至残忍,在预防犯罪方面也并不比其它刑罚手段更有效。因此,取消死刑日渐成为国际社会的主流。二次世界大战以后,国际法学界通过限制死刑的适用范围来逐步…     

国际公约废除死刑适用之我见

自1764年意大利刑法学家贝卡里亚倡导废除死刑200多年来,在对待公民生命权的态度上,国际社会已经不再单纯强调生命权的重要性与平等性,开始对于严重暴力犯罪的死刑适用问题逐渐加以限制,直至最终废除死刑的适用,这些理念充分体现了国际公约保障人权的基本精神。在这种精神的影响下,一些国家逐步废除了死刑。     

国际立法与司法关于死刑适用的变迁

在废除死刑的过程中,首先涉及法律制度本身的变革,尤其是刑事法律体系的变革问题。因为每一项具体刑罚措施的变革都会在不同程度上导致立法和司法的磨合与碰撞、协调与冲突,这就是一种通过裂变最终走向完善的过程。纵观国际刑事法律体系、各国刑事法律体系以及我国刑事法律体系的发展脉络,这个过程同样是一种历史的必然,也是人类社会不断超越本体意识的必然。     

Abolishing the Death Penalty: An Untested Legal Argument

This paper supplies the logical and substantive framework for an untested challenge to the legality of the death penalty in the United States. As such, it yields a novel strategy for appellants and supporting amici seeking review of capital cases in the United States Supreme Court. With twin reliance on the right of the people to reparation for harm wrongly inflicted by others and their constitutional right to Due Process of Law under the Fourteenth Amendment, this paper advances the argument that the mere possibility of a wrongful execution yields an imperative for abolishment of capital punishment by the Court.     

对我国死刑的思考

对我国死刑的思考应着眼于两个层次 :一、死刑是否应当废除 ?这是理性层次思考的问题 ,死刑作为一种刑罚制度具有一定的合理性 ,但其更有不合理性和局限性 ,随着社会的发展 ,死刑的合理性被其不合理性和局限性一一否定 ,死刑应当废除 ;二、死刑是否能够废除 ?这是现实层次考察的问题。我国社会存在因素和社会意识因素决定了现阶段不能废除死刑 ,而在今后多长时间内废除死刑取决于现阶段刑事立法和死刑适用状况中两个支撑点 :(一 )要解决刑事立法者和司法工作者对死刑认识方面的问题 ;(二 )要淡化广大民众崇尚重刑、迷信死刑的观念。     

Siting the Death Penalty Internationally

We examine sources of variation in possession and use of the death penalty using data drawn from 193 nations in order to test theories of punishment. We find the death penalty to be rooted in a country's legal and political systems, and to be influenced by its religious traditions. A country's level of economic development, its educational attainment, and its religious composition shape its political institutions and practices, indirectly affecting its use of the death penalty. The article concludes by discussing likely future trends.     

Race and the Death Penalty

Abstract

Scholars have learned a great deal about race and the death penalty. Yet the field has limitations: (1) prior research focuses on African Americans and Hispanics but ignores Asian Americans; (2) researchers have not explored Donald Black's (1989) plan to eliminate discrimination called the “desocialization of law.” Black notes that jurors who do not know the race of the offender and victim cannot discriminate. Black then outlines proposals aimed at removing race information from trials, while still providing jurors with relevant legal information. We address both issues through an experiment in which mock jurors (N = 1,233 students) recommended a sentence in a capital murder trial consisting of four conditions: (1) Asian American-white; (2) white-Asian American; (3) African American-white; (4) race of offender and victim unknown. The results suggest that Asian Americans are treated the same as whites, while African Americans continue to suffer from discrimination. Here, we consider the potential role of social status in such outcomes. The results also suggest that African American offenders and unknown offenders face the same odds of a death sentence. Here, we consider two potential interpretations. On one hand, jurors in the unknown condition could have seen an African American offender and a white victim in their “mind's eye,” effectively merging the conditions. On the other hand, death sentences could be the same in the conditions for distinct reasons: Death sentences could be high in the unknown condition because of relational distance between the juror and offender, while death sentences could be high in the African American-white condition because of discrimination. We conclude by considering the theoretical and public policy implications of both the central findings.     

刑罚人道主义与死刑制度检讨

本文简要论述了刑罚人道主义兴起的原因和思想内涵,并以此为视角检讨我国的死刑制度。     

契约主义与死刑

契约主义死刑观有着悠久的思想史传统——从最早的苏格拉底到近代启蒙哲学家。首先梳理历史上围绕死刑的几个主要的契约主义论证,发现古典契约论者在死刑存废问题上无法达成共识,究其根源有三:自然状态的不确定性、立约者的人格差异性和自利假设。与基于自利的契约主义不同,罗尔斯式契约主义的基础是公平的互惠合作,再加上无知之幕的设置,因此可以克服上述困难。通过运用罗尔斯式契约主义的分析方法,可以推出,无知之幕背后的立约者将理性地反对死刑。但是这种契约主义刑罚理论无法适用于非立约者的情形——即所谓的非合作者问题。     

Religious Characteristics and the Death Penalty

Using one mock trial scenario, this study investigated whether religious and demographic factors were related to death penalty attitudes and sentencing verdicts. Those who favored the death penalty differed from those who had doubts about the penalty in gender, affiliation, fundamentalism, evangelism, literal Biblical interpretism, beliefs about God’s attitudes toward murders, and perceptions of how their religious groups felt about the death penalty. These relationships generally held after mock jurors were death qualified. Gender, fundamentalism, literal interpretism, beliefs about God’s death penalty position, and perceptions of how one’s religious group felt about the death penalty predicted death penalty sentencing verdicts. Future research could determine whether using peremptory challenges to exclude potential jurors based on religion can help lawyers choose a more favorable jury. The present research was supported by the National Science Foundation award number 0351811, the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, the American Psychology-Law Society, and the University of Nebraska Law-Psychology Program. This research was presented at the 2006 conference of the American Psychology-Law Society. The authors are grateful for the research assistance of Nick Fanning and Beth Herschlag and for the helpful comments from Brian Bornstein, Rich Wiener, Bob Schopp, Dick Dienstbier, and several anonymous reviewers.     

Karl Marx and the Death Penalty

This study is a Marxist analysis of capital punishment or the death penalty. The only detailed treatment of the subject by Marx appeared in an article published in the New York Daily Tribune, February 18, 1853, and that treatment was only a sketch. Thus, the following study is an attempt to suggest what a reading of Marx may contribute to an understanding of capital punishment. I conclude that abolition of the death penalty does not need a Marxist justification, but a Marxist justification adds to the many arguments for that course of action.     

死刑民意调查研究

目前,广大民众对死刑的支持仅是一种“感性的”认识。通过实证调查可知,文化水平的高低基本上不会影响人们对死刑支持率的高低,不同职业也基本上不会影响人们对死刑的态度。因此,那种寄希望于将来人们文化水平提高、社会精神文明程度的提高而使人们放弃对死刑支持态度的观点就显得不切实际。切实可行的做法是：以主张限制及废除死刑的学者为先锋,以政府及媒体为主力军,首先从大学生及中小学生入手加大对死刑的宣传力度与广度,使广大民众早日对死刑有一个全面的、正确的认识,从而使“民意”不再成为我国废除死刑道路上的障碍。     

Death as a Penalty and the Fantasy of Instant Death

In this essay I take up the question of how death can be a penalty, given that each of us will eventually die. I argue that capital punishment in the United States rests on contradictory demands for painless death delivered humanely through pharmaceuticals and yet denies the accused the possibility of natural death. The death penalty must be at once humane and punishing. Analyzing what we mean by ‘botched’ executions, along with the language of the Supreme Court in upholding lethal injection as a humane application of the death penalty, I argue that the fantasy of instant death is at the heart of the tension between death as painless and death as penalty. In the end, I turn to Derrida’s Death Penalty Seminar Volume One, particularly his discussion of Kant’s defence of the capital punishment, and the pivotal role of time in his discussion. Finally, I suggest that the fantasies of instantaneous death and our technological mastery of it result in the fantasy of the ‘good’ punishing death.     

死刑的德性

死刑在道德上是一种不能证明其正当性的刑罚。既然如此 ,在中国 ,废除死刑是一种合理的选择。但是 ,中国尚不具备废除死刑的人文基础与信仰理念 ,而且 ,在威慑主义刑罚理念的支撑下 ,中国的刑事立法与刑事司法倚重死刑的适用。这就决定了中国要废除死刑困难重重。     

死刑替代位阶上无期徒刑的改良

死刑替代措施就是在不适用死刑的情况下应该采取的、用来代替死刑的刑罚方法。死刑替代措施应以现行刑罚体系为基础,以废除或限制死刑实际适用为前提进行考察,选择能够直接担当"最严厉"法定刑角色,保持足够的威慑力的刑种。死缓不是刑罚种类意义上的死刑替代措施;不得假释的终身监禁不符合"人总是可以改造的"的基本理念;无期徒刑是中国刑罚体系中仅次于死刑的刑种,蕴含有较强的威慑力,通过适当改良,能够产生足够的类似于死刑的威慑力。作为替代死刑的方法,设置无期徒刑先予关押期是上乘选择。考察无期徒刑在有期徒刑与死刑中的衔接地位,借鉴国外实际执行无期徒刑的经验,确定10年的先予关押期较为适宜。