Taiwan has signed two United Nations pacts into law in order to promote human rights. That's despite the fact that Taiwan is not a member of the UN. President Ma Ying-jeou made the announcement on Wednesday.

The two UN pacts are the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

Taiwan's justice ministry says it is reviewing current practices to see whether they are up to the UN's human rights standards.

Justice Minister Wang Ching-feng said on Wednesday that her ministry is in particular concerned about the issue of the death penalty. She said Taiwan has not carried out any executions in four years.

"We've formed a task force to promote the gradual abolition of the death penalty," said Wang. "[The abolition of capital punishment] is a set policy. There's still opposition, but our survey showed that if life imprisonment is used as an alternative [to the death penalty], more than half of those polled would support the move."

Wang said that right now only 25 countries still routinely carry out executions.

Meanwhile, a group of more than 20 NGOs, including Amnesty International and the Judicial Reform Foundation, announced on Wednesday the formation of an alliance to monitor the government's progress in adhering to the two pacts.

The alliance called on the government to give regular reports on its efforts so that the pacts would not fall by the wayside. The alliance also called on the government to encourage relevant agencies to educate their employees about the pacts.