CCPR/C/GC/36 IV. Imposition of the death penalty 32. Paragraphs 2, 4, 5 and 6 of article 6 regulate the imposition of the death penalty by those countries that have not yet abolished it. 33. Paragraph 2 of article 6 strictly limits the application of the death penalty, firstly, to States parties that have not abolished the death penalty, and secondly, to the most serious crimes. Given the anomalous nature of regulating the application of the death penalty in an instrument enshrining the right to life, the contents of paragraph 2 have to be narrowly construed.143 34. States parties to the Covenant that have abolished the death penalty, through amending their domestic laws, becoming parties to the Second Optional Protocol to the Covenant, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty, or adopting another international instrument obligating them to abolish the death penalty, are barred from reintroducing it. Like the Covenant, the Second Optional Protocol does not contain termination provisions and States parties cannot denounce it. Abolition of the death penalty is therefore legally irrevocable. Furthermore, States parties may not transform into a capital offence any offence that, upon ratification of the Covenant or at any time thereafter, did not entail the death penalty. Nor can they remove legal conditions from an existing offence with the result of permitting the imposition of the death penalty in circumstances in which it was not possible to impose it before. States parties that have abolished the death penalty cannot deport, extradite or otherwise transfer persons to a country in which they are facing criminal charges that carry the death penalty, unless credible and effective assurances against the imposition of the death penalty have been obtained.144 In the same vein, the obligation not to reintroduce the death penalty for any specific crime requires States parties not to deport, extradite or otherwise transfer an individual to a country in which he or she is expected to stand trial for a capital offence, if the same offence does not carry the death penalty in the removing State, unless credible and effective assurances against exposing the individual to the death penalty have been obtained. 35. The term “the most serious crimes” must be read restrictively 145 and appertain only to crimes of extreme gravity 146 involving intentional killing.147 Crimes not resulting directly and intentionally in death,148 such as attempted murder,149 corruption and other economic and political crimes, 150 armed robbery, 151 piracy, 152 abduction, 153 drug 154 and sexual offences, although serious in nature, can never serve as the basis, within the framework of article 6, for the imposition of the death penalty. In the same vein, a limited degree of involvement or of complicity in the commission of even the most serious crimes, such as providing the physical means for the commission of murder, cannot justify the imposition of the death penalty. States parties are under an obligation to review their criminal laws so as to ensure that the death penalty is not imposed for crimes that do not qualify as the most serious crimes.155 They should also revoke death sentences issued for crimes not qualifying as the most serious crimes and pursue the necessary legal procedures to resentence those convicted for such crimes. 36. Under no circumstances can the death penalty ever be applied as a sanction against conduct the very criminalization of which violates the Covenant, including adultery, homosexuality, apostasy,156 establishing political opposition groups157 or offending a head of State.158 States parties that retain the death penalty for such offences commit a violation of their obligations under article 6, read alone and in conjunction with article 2 (2) of the Covenant, as well as of other provisions of the Covenant. 37. In all cases involving the application of the death penalty, the personal circumstances of the offender and the particular circumstances of the offence, including its specific attenuating elements,159 must be considered by the sentencing court. Hence, mandatory death sentences that leave domestic courts with no discretion as to whether to designate the offence as a crime warranting the death penalty, and whether to issue the death sentence in the particular circumstances of the offender, are arbitrary in nature.160 The availability of a right to seek pardon or commutation on the basis of the special circumstances of the case or the accused is not an adequate substitute for the need for judicial discretion in the application of the death penalty.161 8