A/HRC/RES/54/35 Emphasizing the importance for the effectiveness and transparency of debates on the death penalty of ensuring that the public has access to balanced information, including accurate information and statistics on criminality and the various effective ways to combat it without resorting to capital punishment, Strongly deploring the fact that the use of the death penalty leads to violations of the human rights of the persons facing the death penalty and of other affected persons, Recalling that, particularly in capital punishment cases, States are required to ensure that all persons benefit from a fair trial and a guarantee of due process by providing adequate assistance of legal counsel from the earliest stages of their detention and at every stage of the proceedings, without discrimination of any kind, and effective access to documents and other evidence that are essential for their defence, and that failure to respect fair trial guarantees in proceedings resulting in the imposition of the death penalty could constitute a violation of the right to life, Emphasizing that it is important that States ensure that due process and fair trial guarantees and safeguards, including the right to have one’s conviction and sentence reviewed by a higher tribunal according to law and the right to seek pardon and commutation, are effectively in place and implemented, Recalling that the right of everyone convicted of a crime to have their conviction and sentence reviewed by a higher tribunal according to the law includes a duty on States to review the conviction and sentence on the merits, and stressing that violation of this right in proceedings resulting in the imposition of the death penalty renders the death sentence arbitrary in nature and in violation of the right to life, Underscoring that the denial of legal assistance by the tribunal reviewing the death sentence of an indigent convicted person precludes an effective review of the conviction and sentence by the higher tribunal, and that such denial of legal assistance constitutes a violation of article 14 (3) (d) and (5) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Reaffirming that States are required to allow individuals sentenced to death to seek pardon or commutation, that amnesties, pardons and commutations can be granted to them in appropriate circumstances, that such requests for pardon or commutation are thoroughly examined and that death sentences are not carried out in the event any appeal or other recourse procedure or other proceeding relating to pardon or commutation of the sentence remain pending or unresolved, Reaffirming also that, under international human rights law, no category of sentenced persons may be excluded in law or in practice from pardons or commutations of a death sentence, and that the conditions for attainment of relief must not be unnecessarily burdensome, discriminatory in nature or applied in an arbitrary and non-transparent manner, and expressing concern that, while many countries provide for the right to seek pardon or commutation of a death sentence in their national legislation, certain crimes are often excluded from it, or the number of pardons or commutations may be capped, Underlining that in all cases where the death penalty may be imposed, the personal circumstances of the offender and the particular circumstances of the offence, including its specific attenuating elements, must be considered by the sentencing court, and expressing concern in this regard that the use of mandatory death sentences denies the sentencing court that discretion, rendering it arbitrary and inconsistent with the right to a fair trial and the right to life, Stressing that those convictions resulting in the death penalty based on information obtained through torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of interrogated persons violate article 15 of the Convention against Torture and articles 7, 14 (3) (g) and 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Considering that, in order to avoid wrongful convictions in death penalty cases, States should take all feasible measures to review procedural barriers to reconsideration of convictions and to re-examine past convictions based on new evidence, including new DNA evidence, 3