CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS International law dictates that capital punishment be reserved only for the most serious crimes, subject to fair and legitimate processes that protect a defendant's basic rights and provide avenues for postconviction relief. International law unambiguously prohibits the imposition of the death penalty on juveniles, and international customary law prohibits execution of the mentally ill as well. On all of these fronts, Pakistan has not lived up to its international obligations. At each stage of a defendant's encounter with this system, severe violations of international law emerge. And where laws do protect fundamental rights, such as laws that prohibit the introduction of evidence obtained by torture and forbid the execution of juveniles and the mentally ill, they are are applied inconsistently, if at all. Once on death row, prisoners in Pakistan not only are subjected to persisting human rights violations, but different aspects of their experience reproduce and amplify the many failures of the criminal justice system. These widespread and fundamental failings mandate an immediate suspension of the capital punishment regime. Specifically, Pakistan must: 1. Reinstate the moratorium on all executions In contravention with international law, many prisoners on death row received death sentences for offenses that did not involve the “most serious crimes.” Pakistan has routinely denied a fair trial to defendants sentenced to death. Once on death row, these individuals lack almost complete recourse to challenge their sentences either through effective appeals or mercy petitions, which are routinely denied. Yet, since lifting the moratorium, Pakistan has executed 418 individuals at rapid pace. International intervention calling for anything short of a complete moratorium on executions means the continued killing of individuals whose rights have repeatedly been violated from the time of their arrest to their conviction, and beyond. Many of these individuals are likely to be innocent, mentally ill, or juveniles when first arrested. Furthermore, such intervention results in the continued suffering of death row prisoners, who undergo the trauma of repeated notification of execution dates and stays. 2. Cease sentencing persons to death Given these systematic failings, simple reforms at one stage of the process will not bring Pakistan into compliance with international law. Furthermore, as this report has highlighted, legal reforms, while an important first step, are inadequately implemented and followed at the local level—if at all. Today, Pakistan continues to sentence to death juveniles and persons with mental illness, and institutional shortcomings and widespread corruption also mean that many individuals continue to be wrongly convicted. In light of the severity of the death penalty, and the near-absence of review or relief upon conviction, Pakistan must immediately cease to sentence individuals to death in the first place. Resources should be preserved to ensure the review of the cases of the over-8,000 individuals already on death row. A “MOST SERIOUS CRIME”: PAKISTAN'S UNLAWFUL USE OF THE DEATH PENALTY 40