Capital Punishment should be abolished as a form of legal punishment.

I'd like to start off with some rebuttal. Firstly, I'd like to rebut Jiahua's first point regarding human rights and how Capital Punishment opposes them. I'd like to point out that although my fellow opposition did state that Capital Punishment does not give humans the right to have a life, he did not state why these Human Rights are important. So what? The opposition is basing his argument on the common belief that Human Rights are important. We live in an era where it seems that most human rights treaties have been ratified by the vast majority of countries. Yet it seems that the human rights agenda has fallen on hard times. In much of the Islamic world, women lack equality, religious dissenters are persecuted and political freedoms are curtailed. The Chinese model of development, which combines political repression and economic liberalism, has attracted numerous admirers in the developing world. Backlashes against LGBT rights have taken place in countries as diverse as Russia and Nigeria. So why is it that when it comes to Capital Punishment, Human Rights should apply? Without an explanation on why they're important, the argument cannot stand alone. Even if he did explain why Human Rights are really important, he did not take into account that a just state regularly abrogates people's rights when they intrude upon the rights of others. By sending people to prison, for instance, the state takes away rights to movement, association, and property rights from convicted criminals. The right to life should be no different. He did not explain why Capital Punishment specifically should be abolished. He referred to Article 5 (where he made a typo - I shall excuse it), where "nobody shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment”. But I'd like to state that other punishments are also inhuman or degrading, such as public whipping, near asphyxiation, etc. His arguments are arguments for punishments in general, and are not directly specific to Capital Punishment. Capital Punishment may go against Human Rights, but I'm going to prove that it is alright to make an exception when it comes to Capital Punishment later on, which also acts as a rebuttal to my fellow opposition's first point. I'd also like to point out that the opposition made a bold statement, "Capital punishment is a highly degrading and cruel form of punishment, and can sometimes lead to torture. " It would help if there was some logical reasoning. Moving on to my main argument, what my fellow opposition has seemed to missed is the fact that the point of Capital Punishment is not to "make two wrongs a right", but in fact it is to deter the amount of crimes and murders. Humans fear death. We always have been, from the fears we have to the consequences we face. Punishments are consequences for our horrible actions. With Capital punishment, criminals have something to be scared of: death. Michael Summers, PhD, MBA, Professor of Management Science at Pepperdine University, wrote in his Nov. 2, 2007 article "Capital Punishment Works" in the Wall Street Journal: "". .. [O]ur recent research shows that each execution carried out is correlated with about 74 fewer murders the following year. .. The study examined the relationship between the number of executions and the number of murders in the U. S. for the 26-year period from 1979 to 2004, using data from publicly available FBI sources. .. There seems to be an obvious negative correlation in that when executions increase, murders decrease, and when executions decrease, murders increase. .. (1). This proves that Capital punishment does work effectively when it comes to deterring crime and murders, meaning that the problems stated in Jiahua's text won't even happen. If Capital Punishment keeps on being reinforced into society, none of the problems opposition stated would even happen. Since the amount of murders has gone down in states that have Capital Punishment throughout the years, it would only make sense that murder rates will drop if more states implement Capital Punishment. If less murders occur, less murderers would have to be executed. This links back to why Capital Punishment should not be abolished, because if it does, crime and murder rates will be high again, since murderers have nothing to fear. Secondly, I strongly believe that Capital Punishment is the best answer to murder. My fellow opposition believes that it won't make anything right, be he, himself has not raised an alternative solution. Capital Punishment is the most suitable response to murder because If murder is the willful deprivation of a victim’s right to life, then the justice system’s willful deprivation of the criminal’s right to the same is—even if overly severe—a punishment which fits the most severe crime that can be committed. Without capital punishment, it could be argued that the justice system makes no provision in response to the crime of murder, and thus provides no justice for the victim. Also, Capital Punishment guarantees that the murderer won't commit anymore crimes. Andrew Dawson, a convicted murderer, was given a life sentence in 1982 after admitting the murder of a 91-year-old Henry Walsh in his flat at Ormskirk, Lancashire, stabbing him a dozen times with bread knife. Within weeks of his release in 2010 however, he stabbed defenceless John Matthews and Paul Hancock to death in separate attacks, before leaving their bodies in their bathtubs in Derby (2). There are many more examples of people like this, people such as George Johnson, Ernest Wright, David Cook and Desmond Lee. This is why Capital Punishment should not be abolished, because there is no other alternative for an answer to muder in the world of justice and crime. To wrap things up, I have stated the flaws of my fellow opposition's points as well as rebutting a few, and I have stated a few of my own points. This is why this motion shall fall. Thank you. Sources: 1. . http://www.wsj.com...2. . http://www.dailymail.co.uk...;