The Anti-Death Penalty Asia Network (ADPAN) and the Coalition Against the Death Penalty  (CADP) express our grief over the execution of two Filipinos in China on charges of drug  trafficking. 

We join the bereaved families to offer condolences to family members executed and are  grateful for the Philippine Government’s efforts to exhaust appeals for commuting the  punishment. In due time and without identifying the identities of the two individuals, it is  important to stress the lessons that can inform our work to end capital punishment and foster  transparency.  

We urge the governments of both China and the Philippines to be more transparent in  providing information about the status of persons on death row, the charges they are facing,  and the conditions they are in. Every opportunity should be given for the prisoners or their  loved ones to seek legal counsel, or for lawyers to step forward to aid families who are often  overwhelmed and at a loss, or do not have enough resources to engage adequate legal  representation. Timely information about persons on death row is also crucial in harnessing  support to call for reprieves, commutations of stays of execution. Any refusal or impediment  to such measures severely undermines the fairness and legitimacy of a state’s criminal justice  system.  

Public information can also be used to educate and mobilise members of the public to work  towards more effective solutions to address problems in our societies. Cases that are  shrouded in secrecy, away from public scrutiny, do not offer opportunities for us to better  understand how people end up getting involved with drugs or drug-related offences in the first  place. If our collective goal is to prevent crime and work towards improved well-being in our  communities, unaccountable and secret executions will do little to help us achieve our desired  ends.  

We also urge the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) to work more effectively to  emphasise their own pronouncements, particularly the one stressing that “international drug  control conventions… cannot be used to justify the use of the death penalty for drug-related  offenses alone… It may also impede international cooperation to fight drug trafficking… But  the use of the death penalty cannot provide durable solutions or protect people“. We urge the  UNODC to strengthen human rights-based approaches to drug control and urge member  States to uphold their obligations under international human rights law.

We note that the death penalty for drug offences does not meet the international law criterion  of ‘most serious crime’ threshold for the use of the death penalty. In any event, ADPAN urges  States to take steps to limit its scope and use so they can ultimately join the majority of the  global community in abolishing the death penalty in all its forms.