HISTORICAL EVOLUTION OF THE DEATH PENALTY ABOLITION AS A FUNDAMENTAL HUMAN RIGHT
HISTORICAL EVOLUTION OF THE DEATH PENALTY ABOLITION AS A FUNDAMENTAL HUMAN RIGHT

Summary/Abstract: The history of the death penalty abolition is that of the human’s victory over himself. Facing murder, the death instinct rises in the human soul. Retaliation law represents the primitive instinct of men facing murder. The Great Duke of Tuscany was the first person in Europe to suppress death penalty in 1786. This simultaneity of the first abolition and the philosophy of enlightenment is no accident. Man should have been proclaimed holder of natural rights that no power could withdraw in order to fulfill this utopia: a society whose laws prohibit the execution of the person considered to have disregarded its directives. Therefore, death penalty abolition finds its fundament in the human rights, the first one being the right to life. The history of the death penalty abolition stands for testimony.

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