On Tuesday, January 16th, the U.N. human rights office urged the state of Alabama to reverse its decision to execute a prisoner using nitrogen gas asphyxiation as a method of execution. The office believes that said execution would be a violation of the Convention against Torture and the Body of Principles for the Protection of All Persons under Any Form of Detention or Imprisonment, both of which the United States has agreed to. The method of execution that the state of Alabama is attempting to use on Kenneth Smith –who was convicted of committing a murder-for-hire in 1988–  involves fixing a nitrogen-filled gas mask to the convict that will deprive him of oxygen. The process is incredibly painful, but the state of Alabama plans on providing Smith with no form of sedative. 

In her speech recommending the halting of this execution, Ravina Shamdasani (a spokesman for the human rights office), argued that this type of execution “could breach the prohibition on torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, as well as [Smith’s] right to effective remedies.” Commenting on the fact that other American states –including Alabama, Mississippi, and Oklahoma– have adopted new gas-based forms of execution in recent times, Shamdasani expressed that “it is worrying that this is gaining ground as a method of execution.”

This recent condemnation of Alabama’s critical justice system from the U.N. highlights just how shameful it is that this type of behavior is accepted in our country at all. The United States claims to be the leader of the free world and a protector of human rights across the globe and yet, the U.N. has had to issue statements against numerous instances of violations of human rights in the United States as of late. Such statements include a U.N. monitoring committee condemning the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in August of 2022, a human rights committee calling for the “protection of discrimination against sex and gender-based discrimination in [the U.S.] Constitution” last year, and now the human rights office’s condemnation of Alabama’s use of nitrogen asphyxiation. 

The United States needs to address these issues that the U.N. has commented on; it can start with Alabama halting the death of Kenneth Smith. Death by nitrogen asphyxiation is a cruel and unusual form of execution that shouldn’t be carried out by an American state. Further, the United States should join the multitude of nations that have realized that the death penalty itself is immoral and abolish it; such nations include: Portugal, Denmark, Norway, France, the Netherlands, Australia, Haiti, Hungary, Ireland, Mozambique, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Poland, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ukraine, the Philippines, Mexico, Argentina, Bolivia, Guinea, Chad, and more. These states have recognized that life is a human right and taking it from citizens is cruel or, at the very least, risky. 

It is time that the United States stops governing in ways that receive condemnations for violating human rights and instead becomes a bold protector of these rights. This country promises its citizens a right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” It is time it upholds its promise.