Most Serious Crimes” Vs “Especially Serious Circumstances” The Economic Crimes under Iccpr and Death Penalty in China (Published)
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights is of vital important as a cumulative world’s perception regarding human rights standards. China is on the verge of abolishing death penalty for economic crimes. The accession of ‘life imprisonment without possibility of parole and commutation(LWOP)’ came as a replacement but the pre-requisite invoking this article is not clearly mentioned in the article 383 of Chinese criminal law 1997. The concept of ‘extremely serious circumstance’ in article 383 repugnant to the concept of ‘most serious crime’ in article 6 of International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. This article examines the concept on the standards and jurisprudence of ICCPR and comment on the resultant punishment to make it appropriate to the international standards. Further proposed a modified model of current LWOP for complete abolition of death penalty for economic crimes of corruption and bribery.
Keywords: Death Penalty, Economic Crimes, Extremely Serious Crime, ICCPR, Most Serious Crime