Browsing by Author "Yu, Yiran"

This thesis aims to present the efforts and progress that China has made in reforming its national legislations to keep up with the international standard of human rights protection. The thesis takes as an example the issue of death penalty, for it has been a world’s big concern relating to the human rights protection in China. Therefore, the analysis of international standard of death penalty was made, focusing on the provisions of the ICCPR, which has been signed by China but not yet ratified. The analysis begins with the comparison with the human rights protection in the region of Europe. As Europe is the original area of the human rights concept, as well as the idea of abolishing death penalty, it is taken as an example of the region introducing the abolition of death penalty. While the Council of Europe has been particularly active in the move towards the international abolition of death penalty, the thesis would concentrate on the effort that Council of Europe made in abolishing death penalty in Europe, and also in other parts of the world. Then some detailed introductions of the regulation and application of death penalty in China will be given. And the Chinese traditional legal culture and the recent legal developments will be taken into consideration when I analyze the issue of death penalty in China. Comparing the Chinese legislations with the international provisions, I will point out the gap between them. And the gap is also the challenge that China faces under the global trend, together with the international political pressures. Lastly, from the reformation of death penalty and the criminal system in China, I can see the promising prospect of the human rights protection in China. I will give some proper suggestions from my own expectation based on experiences from Europe, and the development of international human rights protection. The thesis therefore is addressing the affirmation of the efforts and progress that China has made concerning the reformation on death penalty, and looks forward to a better prospect of the human rights protection, which would be correspondent with the international trend.