"Against the Death Penalty: Opinio Juris and International Law", under this name, the World Congress of the International Society for Social Defence and Humane Social Policy was held on May 19-20, 2022. Under the leadership of President Professor Luis Arroyo Zapatero, the Congress spent two days examining the scientific and academic perspectives of combating the death penalty, that is notified as criminal penalty in the laws of half the world and tends to spread.
Considerable attention was paid to crimes of cruelty and torture, the geography of their distribution and trends: from extrajudicial executions in Latin America to crimes against humanity in Ukraine. The issue of preparation of the International Manifesto on the Cruelty of the Death Penalty in the Context of Art. 6 of the International Covenant on Political and Social Rights was noticed and discussed.
The geography of the Congress included professors from the universities of Oxford, Valencia, Middlesex, Cadiz, Madrid, Castilla-La Mancha, Baltimore, San Sebastian, Valladolid, Zagreb, Toledo, Coimbra, Salamanca, Birmingham, Odessa, members of diplomatic corpus and international human rights activists.
In his report, Professor Viacheslav Tuliakov, Vice-Rector for International Relations of National University Odesa Law Academy, focused on the analysis of the characteristics of crimes against humanity and cruelty committed by the Russian military during the occupation of Ukraine. It should be noted that for the first time Odessa lawyers were given the opportunity to speak at the Plenary session of the World Congress of the International Society for Social Defence, which is a real definition of scientific achievements of Odessa Law School and the development of modern jurisprudence.
The Cesare Beccaria Medal for his significant contribution to the development of human rights was solemnly presented by former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero to the Director-General of UNESCO (1987-1999), Federico Mayor Zaragoza. Among the former winners of the award were such outstanding experts in the field of international criminal law as Hans Leszek (Max Planck Int), Sheriff Bassioni (AIDDP President), Roger Hood (Oxford Uni).