Death penalty inhumane, flawed, say global business leaders

Global business leaders have launched a new campaign to end death penalty around the world, alongside asking for their peers to join them in this.

These leaders have started a petition asking people to sign it to abolish the long standing practice of death penalty around the world. Joe Biden is one of the first Presidents of the United States that has publicly opposed the federal death penalty and wishes to do away with the practice.

On of the campaign's leader, Sir Richard Branson said, “The death penalty is broken beyond repair and plainly fails to deliver justice by every reasonable measure. It is marred by cruelty, waste, ineffectiveness, discrimination and an unacceptable risk of error. By speaking out at this crucial moment, business leaders have an opportunity to help end this inhumane and flawed practice.”

Among the various signatories to this petition are billionaires fashion mogul François-Henri Pinault and telecoms tycoon Mo Ibrahim, Ben & Jerry founders Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, Martha Lane Fox, tech entrepreneur and Twitter board member and Arianna Huffington, co-founder of the Huffington Post.

In a statement to The Guardian, Ben & Jerry founders Cohen and Greenfield said, "The death penalty has a long history with oppression, and it needs to end. Now.”

170 members of the United Nations have stopped this practice all together, and the hopes are that other countries will soon follow suit.