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In 1992, the Senate ratified the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights with the reservation of the right to impose the death penalty
on any person other than a pregnant woman duly convicted under existing or
future laws permitting the imposition of capital punishment, including such
punishment for crimes committed by persons below eighteen years of
age. This reservation was in reference to a provision of the ICCPR
providing that the death sentence shall not be imposed for crimes committed by
persons below eighteen years of age and shall not be carried out on pregnant
women. The Senate wanted to ratify but not to have an international
covenant to which we subscribe interfere with state death penalty processes that
lawfully executed people for crimes committed as juveniles. Marshall
Dayan
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