‘Most Serious Crimes’: Searching for a Common Interpretation in ASEAN

Abstract

In all ASEAN countries, capital punishment is widely applied except in Cambodia and the Philippines where the death penalty was abolished. International human rights law does not prohibit capital punishment deeming ‘it may be imposed’ whilst making it clear it should only apply to ‘the most serious crimes’ (ICCPR, Article 6(2)). However, the concept of ‘most serious crimes’ is itself ambivalent and subject to different interpretations by different countries. In the ASEAN region and its ASEAN Member States (AMS), capital punishment is prescribed to an extensive array of crimes, in most cases exceeding the guidelines laid down by international law. Despite this, governments in ASEAN continue to construct their own interpretation of the ‘most serious crimes’. This paper examines several interpretations of ‘most serious crimes’ and the underlying concepts espoused by different AMS and analyses how these became the norm in the region. It also attempts to unpack regional trends and deconstruct existing discourses in order to elicit guidelines for the establishment of a potential common regional interpretation of ‘most serious crimes’ that meet the international standard.