70 2.1 Considerations concerning the death penalty, the principle of non-refoulement and the attribution of responsibility to the States in extradition or deportation proceedings 216. The European Court, the Human Rights Committee, the Committee against Torture and other bodies have amassed considerable case law on the subject of the possible international responsibility of a State as a consequence of its conduct in an extradition process or any other process that involves the return of a person to another country. One group of cases concerns the application of the death penalty, precisely in the context of extradition requests. Another group of cases concerns the alleged risk of torture or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and the principle of non-refoulement. The IACHR will now discuss the principles that these cases have engendered and that are relevant to the decision in the present matter, in which the petitioner has argued that the death penaltiyis a real risk, as is the use of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. Concerning the death penalty and the attribution of responsibility to States for a person’s deportation or extradition 217. On the question of the death penalty, the Commission must begin by pointing out that the American Convention does not prohibit the use of the death penalty in the States that still have it. However, it does establish a number of restrictions and express prohibitions where the death penalty is concerned. 218. For the last 15 years, the Commission has developed a clear approach to its treatment of cases involving application of the death penalty, which are subject to a higher standard of strict and more rigorous scrutiny. The Commission has written that cases involving the death penalty require more rigorous scrutiny because: The right to life is widely-recognized as the supreme right of the human being, and the conditio sine qua non to the enjoyment of all other rights. The Commission therefore considers that it has an enhanced obligation to ensure that any deprivation of life which may occur through the application of the death penalty comply strictly with the requirements of the applicable interAmerican human rights instruments, including the American Declaration. This "heightened scrutiny test" is consistent with the restrictive approach taken by other international human 194 rights authorities to the imposition of the death penalty. 219. For its part, the Inter-American Court has summarized the restrictions established in the American Convention as follows: Thus, three types of limitations can be seen to be applicable to States Parties which have not abolished the death penalty. First, the imposition or application of this sanction is subject to certain procedural requirements whose compliance must be strictly observed and reviewed. Second, the application of the death penalty must be limited to the most serious common crimes not related to political offenses. Finally, certain considerations involving the person of the defendant, which may bar the imposition or application of the death penalty, must be taken into 194 IACHR, Report No 90/09, Case 12.644, Admissibility and Merits (Publication), Medellín, Ramírez Cárdenas and Leal García, Paragraph 122.