Harsh Punishments in from a Human Rights Perspective

Abstract

In China’s participation into the international human rights system, the government has increasingly paid more attention to human rights than ever, but still overuses long-standing capital punishment, tortures detainers and forces the convicted to work against international standards. Many human rights groups and foreign governments often criticize China's human rights violations, particularly its widespread use of the death penalty for numerous nonviolent crimes, of torture to extract false confessions from those facing the death penalty, of forced labour in dentition centers or prisons. This article will examine China’s harsh punishment that mainly involves the death penalty, torture and forced labour, at the core of their international debates from a human rights perspective. Behind harsh punishment in China, underlying reasons for and policy concerns about its use include historical resistance to individual rights, traditional approaches to administrating the masses and the political control of anti-crime campaigns. It will suggest that China’s international human rights obligations require its strict limits on the broad use of capital punishment, as well as those on any forms of torture and forced labour in practice. Further reform on domestic law and practices in using harsh punishments is needed to bring them in line with international standards, particularly the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights that China signed but has not yet ratified.