UNITED NATIONS — Secretary- General Ban, in a marked change of tone from that of his predecessor, Kofi Annan, declined to denounce Iraq yesterday for executing Saddam Hussein and said the United Nations should not dictate its members’ policy on the death penalty.

Mr. Ban’s comments, made to reporters on his first full workday, stood in contrast to a long-standing aversion in U.N. circles to the death penalty. That aversion was echoed in a statement over the weekend from the organization’s point man in Iraq, Ashraf Qazi, after Saddam’s execution.

The secretary-general’s remarks drew immediate comparisons to Mr. Annan, who famously aspired to become the world’s “secular pope” and who constantly argued that the United Nations confers “moral legitimacy” on its member states’ actions.

Mr. Annan often lectured coalition forces on their moral conduct in the Iraq war, which he called “illegal.” Immediately after American troops captured Saddam, in December 2003, Mr. Annan reminded the world that he and the United Nations oppose the death penalty. His successor was much less resolute yesterday, declining twice to denounce Iraq for executing Saddam.

“Saddam Hussein was responsible for committing heinous crimes and unspeakable atrocities against the Iraqi people. We should never forget the victims of his crimes,” Mr. Ban told reporters, adding that “the issue of capital punishment is for each and every country to decide.”

His remarks seemed to contradict those of Mr. Qazi, the Annan-appointed U.N. special envoy to Iraq. “Based on the principle of respect for the right to life,” Mr. Qazi said Saturday in a written statement, the United Nations “remains opposed to capital punishment, even in the case of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.”

Just after Saddam’s capture in 2003, Mr. Annan cited the fact that tribunals set up by the organization, as well as the International Criminal Court, do not employ capital punishment, saying the “secretary-general and the U.N. as an organization are not going to now turn around and support the death penalty.”

Mr. Ban yesterday said that countries “should pay all due regard to all aspects of international humanitarian law.”

But even supporters of strong international law could not cite yesterday any provision that would advocate abolishing the death penalty. Capital punishment is on the books in three of the top five U.N. powers, America, China, and Russia. Although rarely used, the death penalty is also law in Mr Ban’s homeland, South Korea where two former presidents were once on death row.

To support their position, international opponents of the death penalty cite a paragraph in a U.N treaty signed by 50 countries out of 192 member states, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, whose Article VI states “Every human being has the inherent right to life.” But it also adds, “In countries which have not abolished the death penalty, sentence of death may be imposed only for the most serious crimes.”

Human Rights Watch strongly opposes the death penalty and has publicly denounced Saddam’s execution, but “we don’t say it’s based on international law,” the organization’s Justice Program director, Richard Dicker, said yesterday. In international law, “you will not find anything that says the death penalty is banned,” he said.

Mr. Dicker added that his organization favors one interpretation of the International Covenant, according to which the death penalty constitutes “cruel and inhuman punishment,” and therefore is not legal.