This book represents the first fruits in the English language of the commitment to make the most recent academic texts available to the international community with a view to the abolition of the death penalty or a moratorium on its use. Contributions from various cultures and legal traditions around the world are brought together in this edition. They analyze the value of life and the fundamental rights that were debated, in Madrid, at the International Symposium for the Abolition of the Death Penalty, organized by the Centre of Political and Constitutional Studies and the Institute for European and International Criminal Law of the University of Castilla-La Mancha, in December, 2009, and sponsored by the Spanish Government. It was the occasion for the launch of the International Academic Network against the Death Penalty, the inaugural address for which was from the President of the Government of Spain, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, followed by other conference speeches that appear here for the first time in a collective work. This edition is presented shortly before the opening of the ordinary session of the United Nations where, without a doubt, the Report from the Secretary General will be the focal point of the debate between the delegations of Heads of State and Government, the main themes of which are summarized in the content of the book that will serve for the debate on the Capital Punishment to take place at the UN General Assembly in December, 2010. Its results will be useful for the review of the Milennium Declaration Goals, in 2015. In fact, we are convinced that the debate on the death penalty should coincide with the discussion of the Millennium Goals. The goal of universal abolition of the death penalty is one of the great ideals of the United Nations like others that are included in the Millennium Declaration: as Amnesty International proposed, in 1989, we are opposed to the State that kills, and we are against a State and an International Community that allows people to die of hunger and illness in a world that should and that can prevent it from happening. Certainly, all countries have to find their own way and have do so in their own time so as to achieve abolition; this represents an example of ´variable geometry´ or ´different speeds´ in the harmonization of international Law. Works such as those that appear in this book support the transformation of international civil society so that its figurehead may be the principle of human dignity The Academic Network for the abolition of Capital Punishment is committed to this goal and will continue to make documents available to the public from international organizations, NGOs, scientific societies and specialized academics through its open access website www.academicsforabolition.net.