On the opening day of the 9th World Congress Against the Death Penalty – being held in Paris from 30 June to 2 July 2026 and organised by the Together Against the Death Penalty association under the sponsorship of France, the European Union and Switzerland –, at which the President of the Republic delivered closing remarks, the President of the Court, Mattias Guyomar, took part in a plenary on the role of the judiciary as an actor of abolition. He sat on a panel, the subject of which was Regional courts and the impact of their decisions on the application of the death penalty, alongside Ms Veronica Gomez, Judge at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and Mr Dumisa Ntsebeza, Judge at the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights.

In his speech, the President stressed that it continued to be fully relevant and was essential to join together, each entity within its respective capacity and all around the world, to work towards the universal abolition of the death penalty.

“Even in Europe, where there is no death penalty, we are seeing a resurgence in discourse advocating its reinstatement,” he warned, reminding those present of the role played by the Council of Europe and the European Court of Human Rights in the abolition of the death penalty across the European continent. 

Lastly, referring to the adoption of Protocols Nos. 6 and 13 and the evolution of the Court’s interpretation of Articles 2 and 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, he emphasised that, by its very nature, the death penalty was incompatible with human dignity.