After the resolution's approval, Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema declared: "Now we must start working on the abolition of the death penalty".

[2] On 18 December 2008, the General Assembly adopted another resolution (A/RES/63/168) reaffirming its previous call for a global moratorium on capital punishment 106 to 46 (with 34 abstentions and another 6 were absent at the time of the vote).

Working in partnership with the EU, New Zealand and Mexico were co-facilitators of the draft text which was developed over a period of six months, which Chile then presented to the UN General Assembly on behalf of cosponsors.

[10] The association against death penalty and torture was founded in Rome in 1993 by former left-wing terrorist and current nonviolent politician and human rights activist Sergio D'Elia, with his first wife Mariateresa Di Lascia and Italian Radicals' liberal leaders Marco Pannella and Emma Bonino (former European Commissioner).

Since 1997, through Italy's initiative, and since 1999 through the EU's endeavour, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) has been approving a resolution calling for a moratorium on executions with a view to completely abolishing the death penalty, every year.