11 32. The basic concern for safeguarding the rights of the victims continues to be surrounded by debates about when these rights are transferred to the criminal authority. 37 A parallel concern has arisen by virtue of the fact that, in any national society, the criminal punishment system is based on justice and not on vengeance. 38 With respect to this matter, real advances have also been made through restrictions on the death penalty with the purpose of reducing its application until it is eventually abolished. 39 These advances have been manifested in International Human Rights Law 40 as well as International Humanitarian Law 41 and International Criminal Law. 42 33. The understanding that the application of the death penalty per se constitutes cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment has been articulated in international practice. 43 For every possible case (even in the countries that still maintain the death penalty), due process guarantees must be enforced, without which the application of the death penalty constitutes a summary and illegal execution or government-sanctioned, premeditated murder, in violation of the right to life. 44 In sum, it has been convincingly demonstrated 45 that there is no method of applying the death penalty that is not cruel, inhuman and degrading. 37 Cf. e.g., Council of Europe, Serious Crime and the Requirement of Respect for Human Rights in European Democracies (Seminar of Taomina, Italy, November 1996), Strassborg, Council of Europe, 1997, pp.7-199, esp. pp. 91-92 (Intervention of J. Mayer-Ladewig) 38 Ibid. p. 194 (Intervention of B. Geremek) 39 Cf. e.g. I/A Court H.R., Restrictions on the Death Penalty, Advisory Opinion OC-3/83 of August 9, 1983. pp.3-45, paras. 1-76. 40 This tendency toward abolishing the death penalty is expressed in the [Second] Protocol of the American Convention on Human Rights on the Abolition of the Death Penalty (1990); the [Second] Optional Protocol of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of the United Nations on the Abolition of the Death Penalty (1989), and in Protocol No. 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights on the Abolition of the Death Penalty (1983). These Protocols strengthen the commitments already assumed in prior treaties and conventions on human rights protection. 41 For example, the pertinent humanitarian norms of the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 on International Humanitarian Law (Convention III, Article 101; Convention IV, Article 68(1) and (4), and Article 75(1), (2) and (3); and Article 3(1)(1)(d) of all four Geneva Conventions), and the two Optional Protocols of 1977 of those Conventions (e.g., Protocol I, Articles 77(5) and 76(3); Protocol II, Article 6(2), (4) and (5)), imposing prohibitions and restrictions on the death penalty. The International Committee of the Red Cross has adopted this practice (Cf. Le CICR condemnations à mort, 1982, rev. 1987) of interventions to stay the executions of persons in certain categories or in certain circumstances. 42 It should not go unnoticed that the ad hoc International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia (1993) and for Rwanda (1994) do not apply the death penalty, nor is it provided for in the Statute of Rome (of 1998) of the permanent International Criminal Tribunal. 43 Cf. e.g. Human Rights Committee (under Article 7 of the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights); cf., W.A. Schabas, op. cit. infra n. (44), p. 138 and cf., p.140. 44 W.A. Schabas, The Abolition of the Death Penalty in International Law, 2a. ed., Cambridge University Press, 1997, pp. 110, 119 and 295, and c.f. p. 303. In addition, the deterrent effect of the death penalty was never actually proven. Furthermore, the death penalty, once applied, creates an irreversible situation in the face of the inevitable occurrence of judicial errors. Ibid., p. 188l R. Sapienza, “International Legal Standards on Capital Punishment,” in The Right to Life in International Law (ed. B.G. Ramcharan), Dordrecht, Nijhoff/Kluwer, 1985, pp. 284-296. 45 Cf. A. Camus and A. Koestler, Réflexions sur la peine capitale, Paris, Calmann-Lévy, 1997 (reprinted), pp.22-286.