The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mrs Mary Robinson, yesterday declared herself saddened by the execution in Texas of convicted killer Karla Tucker, saying that one death did not justify another.
In a statement, the former president said the increasing use of the death penalty in the United States and some other countries was "a matter of serious concern" and ran counter to a general world desire for abolition.
"I was saddened to learn of the death by lethal injection of Karla Faye Tucker, who was put to death for murders she committed 15 years ago," Mrs Robinson, who is currently visiting the UN headquarters in New York, said.
"I have full sympathy for the families of the victims of murder and other crimes, but I do not accept that one death justifies another," she said in the statement issued from her Geneva office.
Mrs Robinson, who took over her post last autumn, recalled that UN Security Council, in setting up international tribunals on genocide and crimes against humanity in former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, had decided against allowing for the death penalty.
"As far back as 1971, the United Nations General Assembly called on states to progressively restrict the use of the death penalty with a view to its abolition," she said.
Last year the annual session of the UN Commission on Human Rights - where the United States is active in seeking condemnation of other countries for abuses - called on countries which had not abolished capital punishment to consider suspending executions.
Mrs Robinson, one of whose law degrees is from Harvard University, said her own views on the death penalty were reflected in the wording of a protocol to the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
This declared, as quoted by her statement: "Abolition of the death penalty contributes to enhancement of human dignity and progressive development of human rights." The Italian President, Mr Oscar Luigi Scalfaro, also criticised the execution of Karla Faye Tucker.
Tucker, convicted for the 1983 pickaxe murder of two people during a burglary, was executed by lethal injection in Huntsville state prison early yesterday.
Asked for his reaction to the execution during a visit to Salerno, Mr Scalfaro, a devout Catholic, said: "And yet these are people who have made great contributions to civilisation." Speaking in a critical tone, he also referred caustically to the fact that people travel to the United States because they have "wonderful doctors who cure terrible diseases . . . though with other injections".
Italy has no death penalty and is among the most vocal supporters of a total ban on capital punishment.
Pope John Paul had appealed to US authorities to show clemency towards Tucker, and the Italian Prime Minister, Mr Romano Prodi, had spoken out against her execution.
Mr Scalfaro, referring to the cheer given by death penalty advocates outside the prison when Tucker's execution was announced, said: "And to think it is almost the year 2000."