464. The Committee expresses serious concern over the large number of offences for which the death penalty can be imposed, including very vague categories of offences relating to internal and external security as well as drug-related crimes (…)
465. The State party should ensure that the provisions of article 6 of the Covenant are strictly observed and that the death penalty is not imposed except for crimes that can be seen to be the most serious crimes, following proceedings in which all the guarantees for a fair trial under article 14 of the Covenant are observed. The State party is invited to consider the abolition of the death penalty, in the spirit of article 6, paragraph 6, of the Covenant.
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The Human Rights Committee oversees implementation of the ICCPR.
It has consistently found that drug offences do not meet the test of ‘most serious crimes’ for the purposes of article 6.2 of the Covenant. This is shown by Concluding Observations spanning 20 years.
Those included in the e-Book of Authorities are not exhaustive.