The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights today called on the US state of Alabama not to proceed with the first planned execution of a death row inmate by nitrogen gas this month on the grounds that this would likely constitute torture and violate US commitments under international law.

In this type of execution, death is caused by nitrogen hypoxia, replacing the oxygen the death row inmate breathes with nitrogen.

Death row inmate Kenneth Smith is scheduled to be executed in Alabama on January 25th with this method in the framework of which prison officials will put on him a mask that will be connected to a cylinder, which will release nitrogen thus depriving him of oxygen.

In 1988 a man had hired Smith and another to kill his wife. Despite the man’s suicide, the authorities identified the two perpetrators of the murder.

Smith was sentenced to death in the first instance, a sentence that was overturned on appeal. At his second trial in 1996, he was again found guilty of murder, but jurors were divided on the sentence he should be given: 11 out of 12 recommended life imprisonment. Ignoring their suggestion, the judge chose to sentence him to the death penalty, which was legal at the time but is now banned across the US.

Based on this fact, Smith’s lawyers appealed to the US Supreme Court in an attempt to delay his execution, but the court rejected their request.

“We have strong concerns that executing Smith under these circumstances may violate the prohibition of torture and other inhuman or degrading treatment as a method of punishment, as well as his right to an effective remedy,” she told a news conference in Geneva. Ravina Samdasani, representative of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

“These are rights that are defined by two international human rights treaties to which the US is bound,” he added.

According to her, Smith’s appeal against his execution has not been completed.

Samdasani also expressed concern because the protocol followed by Alabama does not provide for pre-execution sedation at all, a measure which, as she said, is an official recommendation of the American Veterinary Medical Association for the euthanasia of large animals.

US citizens are finding it increasingly difficult to secure barbiturates used in lethal injection execution protocols, in part because of a European ban that prevents drug companies from selling execution drugs.

As such, some states have attempted to return to other methods such as the firing squad, while Alabama, Mississippi and Oklahoma have introduced new protocols based on lethal gas.

“It’s worrying that this is gaining ground as a method of execution,” Samdasani said.

The UNHCR has repeatedly raised the issue with US federal authorities, she said.

Other UN experts have also sounded the alarm about the planned execution.

According to Amnesty International, the US executed 18 death row inmates in 2022.