only to acts that cause physical pain but also to acts that cause mental suffering to the victim and extends to corporal punishment, including excessive chastisement ordered as punishment for a crime or as an educative or disciplinary measure. In addition, prolonged solitary confinement of a detained or imprisoned person may amount to an act prohibited by Article 7.103 The Advisory Council notes that, under Article 6(1), the right to life must be protected by law and nobody may be arbitrarily deprived of their life. The ICCPR itself does not specifically prohibit the use of the death penalty but there is an evolving and growing international trend against its use.104 We draw attention to the Advisory Council of Jurists Final Report on the Reference on the Death Penalty of December 2000 in which the Council doubted whether the imposition of the death penalty could be justified for any purpose. It therefore urged States to move towards de facto, and eventual de jure, abolition of the death penalty. Under Article 6(2) of the ICCPR, in countries which have not abolished the death penalty, a sentence of death may be imposed only for the most serious crimes in accordance with the law in force at the time of the commission of the crime and not contrary to the provisions of the ICCPR and to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. We accept that some terrorist offences may come into the category of “most serious of crimes”, for example where they involve large scale loss of life.105 The death 103 Human Rights Committee General Comment 20, Article 7 (1994) paras 5-6. We refer to the recent decision of the European Court of Human Rights in Ocalan v Turkey 46221/99 12 March 2003, which held that State practice throughout the European Union could be seen as agreement to abolish capital punishment during peacetime. Against that background the Court said it was arguable that the implementation of the death penalty could be regarded as inhuman and degrading treatment contrary to Article 3 of the European Convention. While the Court did not reach a firm conclusion on this point, it considered that, even if the death penalty was still permitted under the terms of the Convention, to implement a death sentence following an unfair trial, as had occurred in the case at issue, would, in any event, breach Article 3. We also note, however, the views adopted by the Human Rights Committee in Kindler v Canada (1993) CCPR/C/48/D/470/1991 that Article 6.2 of the ICCPR does not prohibit the imposition of the death penalty for the most serious crimes. The Committee held that obligations arising under Article 6.1 of the ICCPR did not require Canada either to refuse the extradition to the United States of a convicted murderer or to seek assurances that the death penalty would not be imposed. The Committee also rejected a claim that Canada had breached Article 7 as it said that this provision must be read in light of other provisions in the Covenant, including Article 6.2. Accordingly, capital punishment as such, within the parameters of Article 6.2, does not per se violate Article 7. The Committee added that the “death row phenomenon” associated with capital punishment likewise could not generally be considered to constitute cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment but instead depended on the facts and circumstances of each case including personal factors (such as age), the specific conditions of detention and the proposed method of execution. 105 The Advisory Council notes that there are jurisdictions which have a mandatory death penalty for certain crimes. In the opinion of the Advisory Council there is a danger that a mandatory penalty of death could in such cases be imposed on a person whose particular crime did not come into the category of ‘most serious crimes’. The Advisory Council notes in any event the requirement in Article 6(4) of the ICCPR that anyone sentenced to 104 61