British Home Secretary, Jack Straw, has virtually signed away Parliament's right to restore capital punishment. The hanging penalty was removed from the law books in the United Kingdom over 30 years ago. Mr Straw recently endorsed the Sixth Protocol of the European Convention on Human Rights-making it very, very difficult to reverse the Human Rights Act now enshrined in British law.

The Daily Mail commented: "Among everything Britain has signed away to Europe, the right to reintroduce the death penalty may be the one that is regretted most, especially by victims of future murderers." Polls over the last 30 years have shown that the vast majority of the British people want hanging reintroduced. Though former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher always voted "yes," the British Parliament consistently refused to do so when the decision was still in its power.

This landmark decision comes at a time when the evidence is beginning to show that the reintroduction of capital punishment in some 38 states is working in the United States. The American murder rate has dropped considerably over the past ten years, and some observers feel that the death penalty is primarily responsible.

Take New York state: capital punishment was reintroduced in 1995 and the number of murders has fallen by about 50 percent since. Murders in New York City have dropped from 1,200 in 1994 to 500 in 1998.

Correspondent Daniel Jeffreys summed up his report from the Big Apple: "It has taken 15 years but the streets of America's big cities are now safer than they have been for generations. All categories of violent crime are down." Of course, this does not mean that America is completely out of the woods. There is still far too much general crime and the murder picture, though much improved, still has a long way to go. (The Daily Mail, January 28, 1999)

MANILA AND NEW YORK: (Innovative Media, Inc.) - The year 1999 could prove to be very decisive in the history of human rights if there is success in abolishing the death penalty. Next autumn, the U.N. General Assembly could decide on a moratorium regarding the death penalty. It will be a highly debated issue, as countries are increasingly declaring themselves with clarity in favor of or against execution.

The European Union is clearly abolitionist, having overcome Great Britain's reluctance and paid attention to the pope's defense of life.

The hard core countries in favor of the death penalty are the U.S., many Islamic countries, and some Asian states like Singapore, China and the Philippines.

If the United Nations attempts to have the death penalty abolished on a worldwide scale, would the U.S. use it's veto to overrule such a mandate? And if the United States were successful in their influence, what will be the reaction in Europe and especially in Rome?