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Published in 2024.

This research briefing documents the horrifying surge in executions in Iran in 2023, the highest in eight years. More than half of the executions were for drug-related offences amid a distressing return to a lethal antinarcotics policy since Ebrahim Raisi’s rise to presidency in 2021. With systemic impunity in Iran, the briefing reiterates the need for states to initiate criminal investigations under the principle of universal jurisdiction into crimes under international law committed by Iranian officials, irrespective of the absence or presence of the accused in their territory. Since the “Woman Life Freedom” uprising of September-December 2022, the Iranian authorities have weaponized the death penalty to create a pervasive climate of fear across the country, exert control over the population, and suppress dissent and any challenge to their iron grip on power. As a result, 2023 saw an exponential increase in the number of recorded executions. The authorities executed at least 853 people in 2023, a 48% increase from 2022 when 576 people were executed and a 172% increase from 2021 when 314 people were executed. Amnesty International believes that the real number of executions is higher, but the Iranian authorities are not transparent about the number of people executed each year and do not make data on executions publicly available.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list Iran (Islamic Republic of)
• Available languages « ن گ راذ ی د ام ار دنشکب » نارحب مادعا یب یاه ناما رد اریا شزیخ نامز زا ن لاس 1

Published on March 5, 2024

This report has been drafted by Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO) with the support of ECPM (Together Against the Death Penalty). Since 2012, Iran Human Rights and ECPM have been working together for the publication, international release and distribution of annual reports on the death penalty in Iran.

The 16th annual report on the death penalty by Iran Human Rights and ECPM (Together Against the Death Penalty) provides an assessment and analysis of the 2023 death penalty trends in 2023 in the Islamic Republic of Iran. It sets out the number of executions in 2023, the trend compared to previous years, the legislative framework and procedures, charges, geographic distribution and a monthly breakdown of executions. Lists of the female and juvenile offenders executed in 2023 are also included in the tables. The report also looks into the abolitionist movement within Iran, including the forgiveness movement and its contribution to reducing the use of the death penalty, and provides analysis on how the international community can contribute to limiting the scope of the death penalty in Iran. The 2023 report is the result of hard work from Iran Human Rights members and supporters who took part in reporting, documenting, collecting, analysing and writing of its contents. We are especially grateful to Iran Human Rights sources inside Iran who incur a significant risk by reporting on unannounced and secret executions in prisons of 30 different provinces. Due to the very difficult context, the lack of transparency and the obvious risks and limitations that human rights defenders face in the Islamic Republic of Iran, this report does not give a complete picture of the use of the death penalty in Iran by any means. There are 46 reported executions which are not included in this report due to a lack of sufficient details or an inability to confirm cases through two different sources. However, it aims to provide the most complete and realistic figures possible in the present circumstances. The current report does not include suspicious deaths in custody, death row prisoners who died in prison before the executions or those killed under torture. ECPM supports the elaboration, editing process, publishing and distribution of this report in the framework of its international advocacy work against the death penalty. The problems of transparency on the data and information about the death penalty in Iran should be overcome by a strong strategy of distribution and dissemination. The overall objectives of this report for Iran Human Rights and ECPM are to call attention to and publicise the facts, in order to change national and international views on the situation of the death penalty in Iran, first executioner country in the world.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list Iran (Islamic Republic of)

Published on February 11, 2024.

In 2002, Ra’id was arrested alongside several other suspects following a botched bank robbery that left two people dead and another paralyzed. His co-defendants pointed to him as the mastermind, which Ra’id adamantly denied. “I did not take part in that atrocity,” he told the court following his trial. “I did not shoot and kill anyone.”

Newson attended his father’s sentencing hearing, along with his mother, Jeannie Gipson-Newson. A death sentence would be “devastating to my child,” she remembered testifying. But it felt futile. The jurors seemed to have made up their minds. In 2004, Ra’id was sentenced to die.

• Document type Article
• Countries list United States

Published in 2023.

This is the eighth edition of the Death Penalty in India: Annual Statistics Report. This annual publication presents changes in the death row population as well as political and legal developments in the administration of the death penalty in India each year. The statistics are compiled through a combination of data mining of court websites, media monitoring and Right to Information applications.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list India

Pakistan is counted among the countries that rely heavily on foreign remittances for economic stability and foreign reserves. However, despite its dependence on foreign remittances from migrant workers, Pakistan has done little to protect its vulnerable citizens from landing in foreign jails. As a result, Pakistan has seen a significant increase in the number of prisoners and executions abroad. Inadequate oversight and the lack of proper enforcement of existing protections is a literal death sentence for scores of Pakistanis who simply seek a better life and improved prospects for loved ones by working abroad.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list Pakistan

Published in December 2023.

This paper seeks to map the political economy of capital punishment in Iran, in particular in relation to dual and foreign nationals, and examines its external and internal functions. The external functions include suppressing the ‘cultural threat’ of cross-border drug trafficking, achieving more power in sanctions negotiations, seeking reciprocal prisoner swaps or demanding recompense for outstanding multinational debt. The internal functions include quashing protests against the regime, supressing separatist movements, or even just ‘otherness’. It is evident that those facing disadvantage across foreign national and intersectional lines face the death penalty disproportionately. In addition, although only representing a fraction of the overall population of death row, the arbitrary detention of dual nationals has a disproportionate political function.

• Document type Academic Article
• Countries list Iran (Islamic Republic of)

Published in December 2023.

In popular, intellectual and political culture, the Middle Ages are intrinsically tied to violent images of public executions. To historians of the medieval period, this temporal attachment of the death penalty to a remote period is puzzling, especially since it is still widely enforced in the world today and was only relatively recently abolished in Europe. Capital punishment is not only a part of history, but a modern-day reality. Why, therefore, do we pin this punishment to the Middle Ages? This paper aims to analyse the discourses surrounding the usage of the Middle Ages in modern discussions on the death penalty, and to clarify medieval practices of capital punishment, showing how remote they are from our contemporary understanding

• Document type Academic Article
• Countries list United Kingdom

This publication seeks to make visible the gender and intersectional discrimination faced by women in the judicial process leading to the death penalty. Through the various articlesin this publication, the authors bring to light the reality of women facing the death penalty through a different lens.

The first author, Shekinah Bright Kiting’a, in making a compelling case for abolition of the death penalty, explores how the death penalty uniquely affects women in the context of motherhood. Further, she highlights the rights and well-being of the children affected by their mothers’ death sentences, revealing flaws in our legal and ethical systems. With the overall aim of advocating for its abolition due to its significant impact on both parenthood and children’s rights, her article seeks to push for reforms that honour motherhood and prioritize children’s well-being in these difficult circumstances.

Kenaya Komba dissects gender disparity in the judicial system by exploring the intersection of domestic violence and the death penalty. In making a case for a restorative approach to justice, her article analyses the impact of capital punishment on victims of domestic violence and the systemic injustice and biases they continue to grapple with. Her elaborate analysis of the Constitution of Kenya, 2010 and the Protection Against Domestic Violence Act, 2016, highlights the urgent need for reform in the legal system.

While Analyzing the role the media plays in shaping perceptions of women on death row, Patricia Chepkirui evaluates the implications of positive and negative media portrayals of such women by highlighting the ethical responsibilities of media in the coverage of women on death row cases. The article ultimately underscores the significance of responsiblemedia coverage in ensuring that media exposure of cases of women on death row is fair,balanced, and respectful of their rights and dignity.

Alex Tamei delves into the intricacies of abuse, gender-based violence, and trauma as mitigating factors in death penalty sentencing for women. His article comparatively analyses two Kenyan cases of murder in retaliation to intimate partner violence, seeking to shed light on the plight of victims of gender-based violence. The article effortlessly brings out the nexus between the death penalty and intimate partner violence and makessolid recommendations for change.

The fifth author, Patience Chepchirchir, delves into the nexus between psychological abuse and provocation. Through her article, she brings out the scope of psychological abuse while focusing on the linkage between emotional abuse and provocation and how the same can be considered as mitigating factors. Through an elaborate analysis of case law, she makes a case for psychological abuse of women as a mitigating circumstance during sentencing.

Stella Cherono’s article reflects on the intersectional discrimination faced by women in the criminal trial process leading to death row. The article highlights the complex and overlapping forms of discrimination women experience during the pretrial, trial and sentencing stages. Through her comprehensive analysis of gendered pathways to offending and imprisonment, she challenges how society perceives discrimination.

Loraine Koskei Interrogates the emerging jurisprudence on Intimate Partner Violence.Her article lays out the gendered factor in the commissioning and sentencing of women convicted of murder and offers possible recommendations.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list Kenya
• Themes list Death Row Conditions  / Fair Trial / Gender / Women

Published in October 2023.

For capital punishment to be lawful in the United States of America, it must occur without cruelty, a requirement of the traditional reading of the Eighth Amendment. There has never been a consensus on what form of execution is cruel, although some historic practices are shockingly barbaric to modern sensibilities— I think of the “draw and quarter” technique. The family of the murdered victim may fairly argue that the murderous behavior should be the minimum degree of cruelty meted out. But western countries eschew that standard and seek moderate forms, partly to deter by punishment and partly as a forfeit of the murderer’s life for the victim’s life when execution is allowed in that state. Certainly, there is substantial support for continuation of execution in states that allow it. The judges must be respectful of that, but still, they must respect the 8th amendment. At present, the prevalent method of execution in the United States is “lethal injection” using injectable medicines in very high doses that are repurposed to kill the prisoner. Because it is impossible to ask an executed individual about the cruelty experienced during their own death, the state instead relies on the empathy of witnesses to gauge the cruelty of a prisoner’s execution. Lethal injection was expected to be a bloodless execution and aimed to eliminate the visible appearance of cruelty, sometimes through the use of a paralytic.

• Document type Academic Article
• Countries list United States

Published in October 2023.

The most commonly observed fact of American capital punishment is its present outlier status: the United States (U.S.) is the only developed Western democracy that retains the death penalty, and it does so not simply as a matter of law, but as a matter of practice, conducting numerous executions every year. This “exceptionalism” with respect to the death penalty is noteworthy, but focusing on present-day American retention obscures many additional aspects of American death penalty exceptionalism. This Keynote will trace several ways in which the American death penalty was an outlier at its founding and throughout its subsequent history, as well as the varied aspects of its exceptionalism today. I will conclude by predicting that U.S. exceptionalism will soon come to an end–with an “exceptional” form of death penalty abolition, traceable to the distinctive path of the American death penalty

• Document type Academic Article
• Countries list United States

Published on October 12, 2023.

In the seminal Furman v. Georgia case from 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court (in effect) invalidated all death penalty statutes then inforce in American jurisdictions. After many states went back to their legislative drawing boards, some of the revised statutes were approved by the Court in 1976. At that time, Gallup found that 66 percent of the American public supported the death penalty, while 26 percent stood opposed. While support grew to 80 percent in 1994, a recent Gallup Poll from October 2022 shows that this figure has dropped to 55 percent. Recently, only 36 percent of Americans still support the death penalty given the alternative punishment of life imprisonment.

• Document type Academic Article
• Countries list United States

Published in 2023.

While 70% of the world’s countries have abolished the death penalty, also known as capital punishment, much of the United States continues to use it in its criminal legal proceedings.According to the Death Penalty Information Center, at least 190 people were exonerated prior to their fated execution date after being wrongly convicted and sentenced to death in the United States. There is no way to tell how many of the 1,562 people, who have been executed in the United States, were actually innocent. As there are wrongful convictions still happening today, it is no surprise that most countries consider the death penalty a human rights issue.

• Document type Academic Article
• Countries list United States

Published on July 2, 2023

This article focuses on the cases of 664 foreign nationals, the majority of whom are migrant workers, under sentence of death across the Gulf states (including Jordan and Lebanon) between 2016 and 2021. The features of these cases suggest that they are inextricably linked to migrant workers’ dependency under the kafala system, with examples of migrants duped into smuggling drugs across the border by their migrant broker, and once in country, accounts of violent altercations due to disputes about exit visas, and in the case of migrant domestic workers, self-defence against sexual violence. Engaging with the burgeoning literature on immigration, exploitation and criminalisation, as well as scholarship on capital punishment, this article will explore the multiple and unique layers of dependency fostered by the kafala system that place migrant workers at higher risk of the death penalty in these Gulf jurisdictions.

• Document type Academic Article
• Countries list Jordan / Kuwait / Lebanon / Qatar / Saudi Arabia / United Arab Emirates

Published on December 01, 2023.

Innocence cases dominated much of the media’s attention on death penalty cases in 2023. While these prisoners were largely unsuccessful in the courts, there was unprecedented support for their claims from state legislators, prosecutors, judges, and other elected officials, some of whom declared themselves newly disillusioned with use of the death penalty in their state. This year is the 9th consecutive year with fewer than 30 people executed (24) and fewer than 50 people sentenced to death (21, as of December 1). The 23 men and one woman who were executed in 2023 were the oldest average age (tied with 2021) and spent the longest average number of years in prison in the modern death penalty era before being executed. As in previous years, most prisoners had significant physical and mental health issues at the time of their executions, some of which can be attributed to the many years they spent in severe isolation on death row. Continued difficulties obtaining lethal injection drugs led some states to explore new, untested methods of execution or revive previously abandoned methods. Other states enacted or continued pauses on executions while the state’s method of execution was studied.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Public Opinion 

Published on April 3, 2023.

The death penalty has gained its legitimacy from the belief that capital prosecutions are more procedurally rigorous than noncapi-tal prosecutions. This Article reveals how a project of heightened capital standards, set in motion when the Supreme Court ended and then revived the death penalty, was set up to fail.

In establishing what a constitutional death penalty would look like, the Court in 1976 called for heightened standards of reliability in capital cases. In the late 1970s and early 80s, the Supreme Court laid out specific constitutional procedures that must be applied in capital cases, and left the door open for the Eighth Amendment to do even more. In the decades that followed, state and federal courts have fueled a perception of heightened procedural rigor in capital cases by referring repeatedly to the heightened standards applica-ble in capital cases.

• Document type Article
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Fair Trial

Published on December 18, 2023.

Initial impressions of others based on facial appearances are often inaccurate yet can lead to dire outcomes. Across four studies, adult participants underwent a counterstereotype training to reduce their reliance on facial appearance in consequential social judgments of White male faces. In Studies 1 and 2, trustworthiness and sentencing judgments among control participants predicted whether real-world inmates were sentenced to death versus life in prison, but these relationships were diminished among trained participants. In Study 3, a sequential priming paradigm demonstrated that the training was able to abolish the relationship between even automatically and implicitly perceived trustworthiness and the inmates’ life-or-death sentences. Study 4 extended these results to realistic decision-making, showing that training reduced the impact of facial trustworthiness on sentencing decisions even in the presence of decision-relevant information. Overall, our findings suggest that a counterstereotype intervention can mitigate the potentially harmful effects of relying on facial appearance in consequential social judgments.

• Document type Article
• Countries list United States

Published on December 12, 2023.

In a recently published academic article, Emory University History Professor Daniel LaChance writes about an important and underrecognized distinction in the way newspaper editors and journalists covered the executions of Black and white men in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Professor LaChance argues that the portrayals of the defendants made legal executions “a high-status punishment that respected the whiteness of those who suffered it.” While the length and detail of articles about the executions of Black men shrank dramatically over time, he notes that journalists consistently highlighted the humanity of white men who were executed, making it “easier for those who wanted to project a modern image of the South to distance capital punishment from lynching, a form of violence that was becoming a source of embarrassment for respectable white Southerners.”

• Document type Article
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Public Opinion 

Published on October 7, 2023.

Of all retentionist countries, Singapore seems to be the most vocal about the need to execute individuals as a form of criminal punishment. MAI SATO (Monash University) reviews studies conducted or commissioned by Singapore’s Ministry of Home Affairs that claim public backing for and the effectiveness of the death penalty in managing drug trafficking. Sato finds that these studies provide far weaker evidence for using the death penalty for drug trafficking than their authors and officials citing them claim.

• Document type Academic report
• Countries list Singapore
• Themes list Drug Offenses

Published in December 2023.

In “Death by Design” Parts 1 and 2, Wren investigated the state of court-appointed capital representation in Harris County—the death penalty capital of the world. The second report examines why that poor representation has thrived, and the ways that the judges overseeing those cases have enabled it to continue that way.

Wren recommends a total overhaul to the system of capital representation for poor defendants in Harris County, with either the public defender absorbing those cases or the judges establishing a new, freestanding capital public defender that is independent from judicial oversight.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Legal Representation

Published in December 2023.

In “Death by Design” Parts 1 and 2, Wren investigated the state of court-appointed capital representation in Harris County—the death penalty capital of the world.The first report delves into the failings of the lawyers in capital cases.

Wren recommends a total overhaul to the system of capital representation for poor defendants in Harris County, with either the public defender absorbing those cases or the judges establishing a new, freestanding capital public defender that is independent from judicial oversight.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Legal Representation

22 يناير، 2024

ترى المنظمة الأوروبية السعودية لحقوق الإنسان أن 2023 أظهرت التخبط في استخدام السعودية لعقوبة الإعدام. فإلى جانب التغير في أنواع الأحكام المنفذة بدون سبب واضح، وتنفيذ أحكام إعدام بتهم مخدرات، والاستخفاف بالآراء القانونية الدولية، تظهر الأرقام المرتفعة إصرار السعودية على استخدام عقوبة الإعدام دون روادع.

نفذت المملكة العربية السعودية في عام 2023، 172 حكم إعدام بحسب بيانات وزارة الداخلية التي تنشرها وكالة الأنباء الرسمية. عدد الإعدامات أكبر ب 15% من العدد الذي كانت وزارة الداخلية قد أعلنت عنه في 2022، حيث تم رصد 147 حكم، على الرغم من تنفيذ إعدام جماعي طال 81 شخصا في 2022.

نفذت المملكة العربية السعودية في عام 2023، 172 حكم إعدام بحسب بيانات وزارة الداخلية التي تنشرها وكالة الأنباء الرسمية. عدد الإعدامات أكبر ب 15% من العدد الذي كانت وزارة الداخلية قد أعلنت عنه في 2022، حيث تم رصد 147 حكم، على الرغم من تنفيذ إعدام جماعي طال 81 شخصا في 2022.

• Document type تقرير منظمة غير حكومية
• Countries list Saudi Arabia

Published on 22 January، 2024.

The European Saudi Organization for Human Rights views 2023 as a year that demonstrated Saudi Arabia’s inconsistency in using the death penalty. Besides the unexplained shift in the types of executed sentences, the implementation of death sentences for drug-related charges, and the disregard for international legal opinions, the high numbers indicate Saudi Arabia’s determination to use the death penalty without restraint.

In Saudi Arabia in 2023, 172 executions were carried out according to data from the Ministry of Interior published by the official news agency. The number of executions increased by 15% compared to the figure announced by the Ministry of Interior in 2022, where 147 sentences were reported, despite the mass execution of 81 individuals in 2022.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list Saudi Arabia

Since 1976, over forty percent of prisoners executed in American jails have been African American or Hispanic. This trend shows little evidence of diminishing, and follows a larger pattern of the violent criminalization of African American populations that has marked the country’s history of punishment.

In a bold attempt to tackle the looming question of how and why the connection between race and the death penalty has been so strong throughout American history, Ogletree and Sarat headline an interdisciplinary cast of experts in reflecting on this disturbing issue. Insightful original essays approach the topic from legal, historical, cultural, and social science perspectives to show the ways that the death penalty is racialized, the places in the death penalty process where race makes a difference, and the ways that meanings of race in the United States are constructed in and through our practices of capital punishment.

From Lynch Mobs to the Killing State not only uncovers the ways that race influences capital punishment, but also attempts to situate the linkage between race and the death penalty in the history of this country, in particular the history of lynching. In its probing examination of how and why the connection between race and the death penalty has been so strong throughout American history, this book forces us to consider how the death penalty gives meaning to race as well as why the racialization of the death penalty is uniquely American.

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States

At the start of the twenty-first century, America is in the midst of a profound national reconsideration of the death penalty. There has been a dramatic decline in the number of people being sentenced to death as well as executed, exonerations have become common, and the number of states abolishing the death penalty is on the rise. The essays featured in The Road to Abolition? track this shift in attitudes toward capital punishment, and consider whether or not the death penalty will ever be abolished in America.The interdisciplinary group of experts gathered by Charles J. Ogletree Jr., and Austin Sarat ask and attempt to answer the hard questions that need to be addressed if the death penalty is to be abolished. Will the death penalty end only to be replaced with life in prison without parole? Will life without the possibility of parole become, in essence, the new death penalty? For abolitionists, might that be a pyrrhic victory? The contributors discuss how the death penalty might be abolished, with particular emphasis on the current debate over lethal injection as a case study on why and how the elimination of certain forms of execution might provide a model for the larger abolition of the death penalty.

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States

This Ratification Kit is designed for government decision-makers. It gives the procedure to ratify or accede to the Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty, and arguments to convince target countries to endorse it. Governments are not likely to have an expert understanding of the Second Optional Protocol. This document may contain answers to government concerns that will be addressed to you during your lobbying action.

• Document type Lobbying
• Countries list Zambia
• Available languages Kit de ratification - Zambie

This Ratification Kit is designed for government decision-makers. It gives the procedure to ratify or accede to the Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty, and arguments to convince target countries to endorse it. Governments are not likely to have an expert understanding of the Second Optional Protocol. This document may contain answers to government concerns that will be addressed to you during your lobbying action.

• Document type Lobbying
• Countries list Central African Republic
• Available languages Kit de ratification - République Centrafricaine

This Ratification Kit is designed for government decision-makers. It gives the procedure to ratify or accede to the Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty, and arguments to convince target countries to endorse it. Governments are not likely to have an expert understanding of the Second Optional Protocol. This document may contain answers to government concerns that will be addressed to you during your lobbying action.

• Document type Lobbying
• Countries list Papua New Guinea
• Available languages Kit de ratification - Papouasie Nouvelle-Guinée

This report explores the current issues with capital punishment in Tennessee through a historical lens, tracing the origins of the use of the death penalty from lynchings and other forms of racial violence directed at Black Tennesseans. The stories of individuals and communities that have interacted with different facets of Tennessee’s justice system throughout history suggest that, in many ways, even though centuries have passed, the experiences of discrimination toward Tennessee’s communities of color continue. A meaningful understanding of the state’s history and its legacy of violence and racism is essential to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Fair Trial

In The Fear of Too Much Justice, legendary death penalty lawyer Stephen B. Bright and legal scholar James Kwak offer a heart-wrenching overview of how the criminal legal system fails to live up to the values of equality and justice. The book ranges from poor people squeezed for cash by private probation companies because of trivial violations to people executed in violation of the Constitution despite overwhelming evidence of intellectual disability or mental illness. They also show examples from around the country of places that are making progress toward justice.

With a foreword by Bryan Stevenson, who worked for Bright at the Southern Center for Human Rights and credits him for “[breaking] down the issues with the death penalty simply but persuasively,” The Fear of Too Much Justice offers a timely, trenchant, firsthand critique of our criminal courts and points the way toward a more just future.

Available: June 2023

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Fair Trial

In 2020-2021, The Death Penalty Project, in partnership with Community Legal Aid Institute, LBH Masyarakat, commissioned The Death Penalty Research Unit (DPRU) at the University of Oxford, in association with University Centre of Excellence HIV/AIDS Research Centre-HPSI at Atma Jaya Catholic University of Indonesia (AJCU), to conduct the research building empirical knowledge on who is being convicted for drug offences and uncover the factors that have influenced their motivations and decision making. Interviews were conducted on 57 prisoners from a prison in Jakrata, Indonesia, all convicted for drug offences. This is the first stage of a larger mapping project, which will interview those convicted of drug offences and sentenced to death or life in prisons across Indonesia and Southeast Asia. It also compliments our two part opinion study on attitudes on capital punishment in Indonesia.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list Indonesia
• Themes list Drug Offenses

The 15th Annual Report on the Death Penalty in Iran, by Iran Human Rights and ECPM reveals the highest annual number of executions since 2015. At least 582 people were executed, an increase of 75% compared to 2021. In 2022, Iran’s authorities demonstrated how crucial the death penalty is to instil societal fear in order to hold onto power.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list Iran (Islamic Republic of)
• Available languages Rapport annuel sur la peine de mort en Iran 2022

In the summer of 2007, an older man approaches Reyhaneh Jabbari and asks the architecture student who has a side job as an interior decorator for her help in the design of offices. During the site inspection, he tries to rape her. Reyhaneh stabs him in self-defence. She is arrested for murder and sentenced to death. Reyhaneh was to spend the next seven years in prison while her family hired lawyers and made the public aware of the case. However, in spite of the efforts of national and international politicians and human rights organisations, the Iranian judiciary continued to cite the “right of blood-revenge”. This meant that, as long as Reyhaneh did not withdraw her accusations against the man, his family could demand her death. Reyhaneh stuck to her testimony and was hanged at the age of 26.
In her moving and shockingly topical documentary debut, director Steffi Niederzoll uses among other things original audio and visual material that was smuggled out of Iran. This film, in which Holy Spider actor Zar Amir Ebrahimi lends Reyhaneh her voice, makes visible the injustice in Iranian society and portrays an involuntary heroine who gave her life in the fight for women’s rights.

• Document type Multimedia content
• Countries list Iran (Islamic Republic of)
• Themes list Gender / Women
• Available languages Sept hivers à Téhéran

Harm Reduction International has monitored the use of the death penalty for drug offences worldwide since our first ground-breaking publication on this issue in 2007. This report, our twelfth on the subject, continues our work of providing regular updates on legislative, policy and practical developments related to the use of capital punishment for drug offences, a practice which is a clear violation of international standards. As of December 2022, Harm Reduction International (HRI) recorded at least 285 executions for drug offences globally during the year, a 118% increase from 2021, and an 850% increase from 2020. Executions for drug offences are confirmed or assumed to have taken place in six countries: Iran, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, plus in China, North Korea and Vietnam – on which exact figures cannot be provided because of extreme opacity. Therefore, this figure is likely to reflect only a percentage of all drug-related executions worldwide. Confirmed death sentences for drug offences were also on the rise; with at least 303 people sentenced to death in 18 countries. This marks a 28% increase from 2021.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list China / Democratic People's Republic of Korea / Indonesia / Iran (Islamic Republic of) / Malaysia / Saudi Arabia / Singapore / Viet Nam
• Themes list Drug Offenses

The Reverend Russ Ford, who served as the head chaplain on Virginia’s death row for eighteen years, raged against the inequities of the death penalty—now outlawed in Virginia—while ministering to the men condemned to die in the 1980s and 1990s. Ford stood watch with twenty-eight men, sitting with them in the squalid death house during the final days and hours of their lives. In July 1990 he accidentally almost became the 245th person killed by Virginia’s electric chair as he comforted Ricky Boggs in his last moments, a vivid episode that opens this haunting book. Many chaplains get to know the condemned men only in these final moments. Ford, however, spent years working with the men of Virginia’s death row, forging close bonds with the condemned and developing a nuanced understanding of their crimes, their early struggles, and their challenges behind bars. His unusual ministry makes this memoir a unique and compelling read, a moving and unflinching portrait of Virginia’s death row inmates. Revealing the cruelties of the state-sanctioned violence that has until recently prevailed in our backyard, Crossing the River Styx serves as a cautionary tale for those who still support capital punishment.

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Death Row Conditions 

For three decades, a little-known group of “mitigation specialists” has helped save death-penalty defendants in the USA by documenting their childhood traumas. A rare look inside one case.

• Document type Article
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Legal Representation

The fascinating, moving story of a friendship with an inmate on death row. It was a clash of race, privilege, and circumstance when Alan Robertson first signed up through a church program to visit Cecil Johnson on Death Row, to offer friendship and compassion. Alan’s wife Suzanne had no intention of being involved, but slowly, through phone calls and letters, she began to empathize and understand him. That Cecil and Suzanne eventually became such close friends—a white middle-class woman and a Black man who grew up devoid of advantage—is a testament to perseverance, forgiveness, and love, but also to the notion that differences don’t have to be barriers. This book recounts a fifteen-year friendship and how trust and compassion were forged despite the difficult circumstances, and how Cecil ended up ministering more to Suzanne’s family than they did to him. The story details how Cecil maintained inexplicable joy and hope despite the tragic events of his life and how Suzanne, Alan, and their two daughters opened their hearts to a man convicted of murder. Cecil Johnson was executed Dec. 2, 2009.

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Death Row Conditions 

This is the seventh edition of the Death Penalty in India: Annual Statistics Report published by Project 39A at National Law University, Delhi. 2022 represents a significant shift in death penalty adjudication, with the Supreme Court recognising the need to reconsider the capital sentencing framework for the first time since it was laid down in Bachan Singh v. State of Punjab in 1980. In a momentous order, the Supreme Court noted the gaps in the death penalty sentencing framework and has sought to address these concerns through a Constitution Bench towards establishing the components of a real, meaningful and effective capital sentencing hearing. In another decision, the Court laid down guidelines for the collection of mitigating material by trial courts. However, in the same year that the Supreme Court cast grave doubts on the death penalty sentencing framework and its implementation by trial courts, it is of concern that 165 death sentences were imposed by Sessions Courts, the highest in a single year since 2000.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list India

The Capital Punishment and Social Rights Research Initiative assesses and analyzes the access of men and women on U.S. death rows to social rights such as health care, social contacts, visitation, communication, recreation and spiritual support. CPSR’s info series on living conditions on death row, state by state. Part 1: Texas

• Document type Multimedia content
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Death Row Conditions 

Saudi Arabia is a flagrant abuser of the right to life. Between 2010 and 2021, Saudi Arabia executed at least 1243 people, making it one of the most rampant executioners in the world. As of December 2022, the Saudi regime had executed at least a further 147 people in 2022, including 81 people in one day in a mass execution on 12 March 2022.
Saudi Arabia’s use of the death penalty has drastically increased since 2015. This escalation has taken place on the watch of Saudi Arabia’s King Salman, who acceded the throne on 23 January 2015, and his son, Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman. The annual rate of executions has almost doubled since King Salman and Mohammed bin Salman came to power in 2015. From 2010-2014 there was an average of 70.8 executions per year. From 2015-2022 there was an average of 129.5 executions per year – a rise of 82%. The six bloodiest years of executions in Saudi Arabia’s recent history have all occurred under the leadership of Mohammed bin Salman and King Salman (2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2022).

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list Saudi Arabia
• Available languages سفك الدماء والأكاذيب: مملكة إعدام محمد بن سلمان

The Death Penalty Project’s latest report provides a comprehensive analysis of the lives of prisoners on death row in Kenya. It focuses on prisoners’ socio-economic backgrounds and profiles, their pathways to, and motivation for, offending, as well as their experiences of the criminal justice process and of imprisonment. It complements our previous research, a two-part study of attitudes towards the death penalty in Kenya, The Death Penalty in Kenya: A Punishment that has Died Out in Practice.
While 120 countries around the world have now abolished the death penalty, including 25 in Africa, Kenya is one of 22 African nations that continues to retain the death penalty in law, albeit it has not carried out any executions for more than three decades. As such, Kenya is classified as ‘abolitionist de facto’, the United Nations term for a country that has not carried out an execution for at least 10 years. Yet, while state-sanctioned executions no longer occur, hundreds of people are currently living under sentence of death and others are convicted and sentenced to death each year. As long as the death penalty is retained in law, there remains a risk that executions might resume if there is political change. Moreover, the plight and turmoil of those languishing on death row – consistently the poorest and most vulnerable – cannot be ignored. They are disproportionately sentenced to death and suffer the harshest punishments and treatment.

• Document type Book
• Countries list Kenya

Decades of research on the administration of the death penalty have recognized the persistent arbitrariness in its implementation and the racial inequality in the selection of defendants and cases for capital punishment. This Article provides new insights into the combined effects of these two constitutional challenges. We show how these features of post-Furman capital punishment operate at each stage of adjudication, from charging death-eligible cases to plea negotiations to the selection of eligible cases for execution and ultimately to the execution itself, and how their effects combine to sustain the constitutional violations first identified 50 years ago in Furman. Analyzing a dataset of 2,328 first- degree murder convictions in Georgia from 1995–2004 that produced 1,317 death eligible cases, we show that two features of these cases combine to produce a small group of persons facing execution: victim race and gender, and a set of case-specific features that are often correlated with race. We also show that these features explain which cases progress from the initial stages of charging to a death sentence, and which are removed from death eligibility at each stage through plea negotiations. Consistent with decades of death penalty research, we also show the special focus of prosecution on cases where Black defendants murder white victims. The evidence in the Georgia records suggests a regime marred less by overbreadth in its statute than capriciousness and randomness in the decision to seek death and to seek it in a racially disparate manner. These two dimensions of capital case adjudication combine to sustain the twin failures that produce the fatal lottery that is the death penalty.

• Document type Academic report
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Fair Trial

In a year awash with incendiary political advertising that drove the public’s perception of rising crime to record highs, public support for capital punishment and jury verdicts for death remained near fifty-year lows. Defying conventional political wisdom, nearly every measure of change — from new death sentences imposed and executions conducted to public opinion polls and election results — pointed to the continuing durability of the more than 20-year sustained decline of the death penalty in the United States.
The Gallup crime survey, administered in the midst of the midterm elections while the capital trial for the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida was underway, found that support for capital punishment remained within one percentage point of the half-century lows recorded in 2020 and 2021. The 20 new death sentences imposed in 2022 are fewer than in any year before the pandemic, and just 2 higher than the record lows of the prior two years. With the exception of the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021, the 18 executions in 2022 are the fewest since 1991.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list United States

Use of the death penalty in Texas remained near historic low levels in 2022, with juries sentencing two people to death and the State executing five people. Three other scheduled executions were stayed by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA). Overall, the eight execution dates set for 2022 were the fewest in Texas since 1996.
Despite their low number, the executions set and carried out in 2022 raise troubling issues about the fairness and utility of the death penalty. Four of the men put to death, including 78-year-old Carl Wayne Buntion, suffered from physical or mental impairments or histories of childhood trauma, while two maintained their innocence of the crimes for which they were convicted.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list United States

Death Penalty and the Indian Supreme Court (2007-2021) maps the important trends and developments in the Supreme Court’s death penalty jurisprudence. These past 15 years have witnessed significant developments in the law on capital sentencing, post-mercy jurisprudence, and other procedural developments pertaining to the administration of the death penalty. Imagined as an intellectual successor of PUCL and Amnesty International’s doctrinal study of the Supreme Court’s death penalty cases between 1950 to 2006, in ‘Lethal Lottery: The Death Penalty in India’, this report highlights the sustained inconsistency and judge-centric reasoning in capital cases, with particular emphasis on the problem of arbitrariness in approaches to capital sentencing at the Supreme Court. 

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list India

On July 1, 2021, Virginia ended a 413-year tradition by abolishing the death penalty.
Many of those convicted from 1608 to 2017 deserved harsh punishment – but Virginia took harsh to a whole new level with its “finality over fairness” philosophy. Four hundred years of her racist, mob-driven capital punishment system ensnared many innocent and undeserving victims under the toxic guises of protecting white citizens or being “tough on crime.” So many of those killed by the state died with their guilt or innocence lost to history.
Virginia leads the nation with 1,390 executions. After a 1976 Supreme Court decision, Virginia institutionalized and streamlined the parade to the death chamber more efficiently than any other state, executing between 1976 and 2017 a breathtaking 73 percent of all who received death sentences. The national average is 16 percent.

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States

Most of the workers NPR interviewed reported suffering serious mental and physical repercussions. But only one person said they received any psychological support from the government to help them cope. The experience was enough to shift many of their perspectives on capital punishment. No one who NPR spoke with whose work required them to witness executions in Virginia, Nevada, Florida, California, Ohio, South Carolina, Arizona, Nebraska, Texas, Alabama, Oregon, South Dakota or Indiana expressed support for the death penalty afterward, NPR found.

• Document type Article
• Countries list United States

In Roper v. Simmons (2005), the US Supreme Court raised the minimum age at which someone could be subjected to capital punishment, ruling that no one under the age of 18 at the time of their crime could be sentenced to death. The present article discusses the legal context and rationale by which the Court established the current age-based limit on death penalty eligibility as well as the scientific basis for a recent American Psychological Association Resolution that recommended extending that limit to include members of the “late adolescent class” (i.e., persons from 18 to 20 years old). In addition, we present new data that address the little-discussed but important racial/ethnic implications of these age-based limits to capital punishment, both for the already established Roper exclusion and the APA-proposed exclusion for the late adolescent class. In fact, a much higher percentage of persons in the late adolescent class who were sentenced to death in the post-Roper era were non-White, suggesting that their age-based exclusion would help to remedy this problematic pattern.

• Document type Academic report
• Countries list United States

These individual cases illustrate issues found in systemic reviews of the state’s death penalty system. In 2017, a bipartisan commission that included former prosecutors, defense lawyers, judges, citizens, crime victim advocates, and law professors found that the state’s capital punishment system created “unacceptable risks of inconsistent, discriminatory, and inhumane application of the death penalty.” In an extensively researched report, the commission recommended a moratorium on executions until reforms were made. Five years later, Oklahoma has enacted “virtually none” of the suggested reforms.

• Document type Article
• Countries list United States

In their new book, released in the Summer of 2022, University of Denver criminology and sociology professor Scott Phillips and University of Georgia sociologist Mark Cooney apply the concept of “social geometry,” developed in the 1970s by sociologist Donald Black, to analyze outcomes of capital cases. After reviewing extensive data collected in connection with the landmark Baldus Study of capital sentencing in Georgia and from the national Capital Jury Project, they conclude that the sentencing outcomes in the cases in those databases support key principles of Black’s theory: the higher the social status of the victim and the lower the social status of the defendant, the more likely a death sentence will be imposed.

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States

The implementation of capital punishment has seen substantial shifts over the course of the past decade. During the period from the end of a moratorium on executions in December 2014 to August 2019, an estimated 1,800 death sentences were imposed across the entire court system and 520 people were executed. Various amendments to Pakistan’s criminal law over the past several decades have resulted in a list of 33 offenses, most of which are far removed from the definition of the “most serious crimes” under international law. A full list of offences is attached at the end of the report.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list Pakistan

In a February 2019 letter to the United Nations Office in Geneva, the government of Bahrain claimed that its courts “actually hand down very few death sentences.” In fact, since 2011, courts in Bahrain have sentenced 51 people to death, and the state has executed six since the end of a de facto moratorium on executions in 2017. As of June 2022, 26 men were on death row, and all have exhausted their appeals. Under Bahraini law, King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa has the power to ratify these sentences, commute them, or grant pardons.

• Document type Article
• Countries list Bahrain
• Available languages المحكمة تطمئن إلى سلامة الاعتراف : أحكام الإعدام في البحرين إثر التعذيب والمحاكمات الصُوَرية

Research examining death penalty deterrence has been characterized as inconclusive and uninformative. The present analysis heeds a recommendation from prior research to examine single-state changes in death penalty policy using the synthetic control method. Data from the years 1979–2019 were used to construct synthetic controls and estimate the effects of death penalty moratoriums on homicide rates in Illinois, New Jersey, Washington, and Pennsylvania. Moratoriums on capital punishment resulted in nonsignificant homicide reductions in all four states.

• Document type Academic report
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Moratorium

An investigation into the death penalty in the People’s Republic of China in the Xi Jinping era (2012–) shows that unlike previous administrations, Xi does not appear to have articulated a signature death penalty policy. Where policy in China is unclear, assessing both the quality and frequency of discourse on the topic can provide evidence regarding an administration’s priorities.
This article was first published in Crime Justice Journal: https://www.crimejusticejournal.com/issue/view/119

• Document type Academic report
• Countries list China

The death penalty in Malaysia is a British colonial legacy that has undergone significant scrutiny in recent times. While the Malaysian Federal Constitution 1957 provides that ‘no person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty save in accordance with law’, there are several criminal offences (including drug-related crimes) that impose the mandatory and discretionary death penalty. Using Benford and Snow’s framing processes, this paper reviews death penalty politics in Malaysia by analysing the rhetoric of abolitionists and retentionists. The abolitionists, comprising activist lawyers and non-government organisations, tend to use ‘human rights’ and ‘injustice’ frames, which humanise the ‘criminal’ and gain international support. The retentionists, such as victims’ families, use a ‘victims’ justice’ frame emphasising the ‘inhuman’ nature of violent crimes. In addition, the retentionist state shifts between ‘national security’ and ‘national development’ frames. This paper finds that death penalty politics in Malaysia is predominantly a politics of framing.
This article was first published in Crime Justice Journal: https://www.crimejusticejournal.com/issue/view/119

• Document type Academic report
• Countries list Malaysia

The South Pacific forms a cohesive region with broadly similar cultural attributes, legal systems and colonial histories. A comparative analysis starts from the assumption that these countries should also have similar criminal justice policies. However, until 2022, both Papua New Guinea and Tonga were retentionist death penalty outliers in the South Pacific, a region home to seven other fully abolitionist members of the United Nations. In this article, we use the comparative method to explain why Papua New Guinea and Tonga have pursued a different death penalty trajectory than their regional neighbours. Eschewing the traditional social science explanations for death penalty retention, we suggest two novel explanations for ongoing retention in Papua New Guinea and Tonga: the law and order crisis in the former and the traditionally powerful monarchy in the latter.
This article was first published in Crime Justice Journal: https://www.crimejusticejournal.com/issue/view/119

• Document type Academic report
• Countries list Papua New Guinea / Tonga

In the former penal colony of New South Wales (NSW), a Labor government attempted what its counterpart in Queensland had achieved in 1922: the abolition of the death penalty. Although NSW’s unelected Legislative Council scuttled Labor’s 1925 bill, the party’s prevarication over capital punishment and the government’s poor management of the campaign thwarted abolition for a further three decades. However, NSW’s failure must be analysed in light of ambivalent abolitionism that prevailed in Britain and the US in the postwar decade. In this wider context, Queensland, rather than NSW, was the abolitionist outlier.
This article was first published in Crime Justice Journal: https://www.crimejusticejournal.com/issue/view/119

• Document type Academic report
• Countries list Australia

The abolition of the death penalty in Queensland in 1922 was the first in Australian jurisdictions, and the first in the British Empire. However, the legacy of the Queensland death penalty lingered in Australian colonial territories. This article considers a variety of practices in which the death penalty was addressed by Australian decision-makers during the first half of the 20th century. These include the exemption of Australian soldiers from execution in World War I, use of the death penalty in colonial Papua and the Mandate Territory of New Guinea, hanging as a weapon of war in the colonial territories, and the retrieval of the death penalty for the punishment of war crimes. In these histories, we see not only that the Queensland death penalty lived on in other contexts but also that ideological and political preferences for abolition remained vulnerable to the sway of other historical forces of war and security.
This article was first pubished in Crime Justice Journal: https://www.crimejusticejournal.com/issue/view/119

• Document type Academic report
• Countries list Australia

This article reviews the executions of Australians in the region and the Australian responses over the past two decades. Informed by the author’s legal defence role in death penalty cases in Singapore and Indonesia and other countries, the article explores developments in anti–death penalty advocacy since 2015: the parliamentary enquiry, the ‘whole of government’ strategy led by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the efforts made by Australia and Australians in Asia.
This article was first published in Crime Justice Journal: https://www.crimejusticejournal.com/issue/view/119

• Document type Article
• Countries list Australia

Given how pressing the problem has become, and the real interest in reforms to promote access to justice, this article takes a different tack than prior habeas reform work: to restore habeas corpus to its pre-AEDPA and pre-Rehnquist court state, in which a federal court can review claims and reach their merits. The approach would preserve flexibility at the district court level and remove the many layers of procedural complexity that the Supreme Court and then Congress have erected. We believe that deep changes are needed, and in that, we agree with judges and scholars that have for some time proposed such changes in the writ. As we describe, AEDPA was enacted as a culmination of more than two decades of complex Supreme Court law that had already limited access to federal habeas corpus. While AEDPA incorporated some of those procedural rulings, the concern would be that should AEDPA be repealed, even in part, those court-made restrictions could be interpreted to supplant AEDPA restrictions. Clear statutory language will be needed to ensure that the Court does not frustrate Congress, as it has in the past, by supplementing statutory text in order to limit constitutional remedies. We do not mean to suggest that the various proposals set out here are exhaustive. Our goal is to promote careful considerations of alternatives to the present-day set of federal habeas corpus statutes and accompanying judicial interpretation.

• Document type Academic report
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Terrorism

The federal death penalty today would be unrecognizable to the founders, who saw the ultimate penalty as a means of protecting sovereign interests and who therefore carefully guarded the practice at English common law of yielding national interests to local ones. Over the course of time, the geographic distribution and substantive basis for the penalty changed, but until the modern era, its underlying purpose did not. As the Trump era executions made painfully clear, however, the federal death penalty today is different. It is disproportionately imposed for crimes that could have readily been prosecuted by other jurisdictions and that have little obvious connection to federal sovereignty, and it is disproportionately imposed against non-white people. By any rational measure, it is vanishingly rare, and it serves no valid penological goal. Simply put, federal death sentences today are, in most cases, “cruel and unusual in the same way that being struck by lightning is cruel and unusual.”

• Document type Academic report
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment and Punishment

This article retraces the evolution and recent decline of death peanlty in the United States, notablt through state court interventions. These dynamics between judicial and political action illuminate the importance of state court intervention in the story of the American death penalty’s precipitous decline, which has tended to foreground other institutional actors and to neglect the complex interactions among branches of government. State judicial rulings, though often highly technical and, therefore, less visible and accessible to the public, have been a pervasive and powerful force in the two-decade-long diminution of the practice of capital punishment across the United States.

• Document type Academic report
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Trend Towards Abolition

The protracted and (somewhat) ongoing debate over whether lethal injection—in some or all of its forms—is cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment is the newest variation on the question of whether a particular form of capital punishment is inhumane and cruel. The history of capital punishment in the United States over the last two centuries has been punctuated by attempts to find less painful and gruesome ways to kill persons society has condemned to die. Ironically, at least from a historical perspective, some recent executions have seen condemned inmates or their attorneys elect some of the older methods, i.e., electrocution, or offer, as a potentially less painful alternative, the firing squad or death by lethal gas. And some states, including the main subject of this article, have resurrected electrocution and the firing squad because of a claimed inability or difficulty in obtaining execution drugs. In this article, the authors trace the history of execution methods in the pre-modern era of capital punishment (before 1972), primarily in South Carolina, pointing out the often-intractable problems with their implementation process (including specific “botches”), and then address other aspects of executions that have relevance to the current debate about the wisdom and efficacy of retaining the “modern” American death penalty in the twenty-first century.

• Document type Academic report
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment and Punishment

The numbers and the politics of the death penalty in India tell very different stories, presenting complicated narratives for its future. The public reaction to instances of sexual violence and other offences over the last decade and the consequent political response has significantly strengthened the retention and expansion of the death penalty. This is reflected from the fact that that of all the death sentences that district courts impose, only about 5 percent get confirmed in India’s appellate system. However, does this mean there is growing scepticism about the death penalty in the Supreme Court of India? Unfortunately, the answer is far from simple. An assessment of the death penalty in India’s appellate courts during the last decade will demonstrate that a crime-centric approach has hindered any principled discomfort with the death penalty or the manner of its administration. In particular, the Supreme Court has faltered in high-profile death sentence cases (i.e., offences against the state and sexual violence cases), and its track record of commutations has very little to do with principled considerations on sentencing. This paper argues that the political and judicial imagination of the death penalty, as a necessary part of the response to crime, creates significant and unique challenges for the path towards abolition.
This article was first published in Crime Justice Journal: https://www.crimejusticejournal.com/issue/view/119

• Document type Academic report
• Countries list India

This article primarily focuses on how racial bias creates nearly ubiquitous racial disparities in the imposition of the death penalty; it does so both to amass further reasons McCleskey was wrongly decided, and to point the way forward. Part I provides the necessary foundation by summarizing the history of race and the death penalty in the United States, with a focus on the Supreme Court’s treatment of racial discrimination claims in capital sentencing. Part II, the heart of this Article, examines the multiple psychological mechanisms that create racially biased decision making in capital cases. Understanding those mechanisms further undercuts the Supreme Court’s reasoning in McCleskey and argues for overturning the holding. However, recognizing the reluctance with which today’s Court would view overturning McCleskey, Part III considers whether and how alternative, case-specific uses of the data described in Part II might ameliorate the influence of racial bias in capital sentencing.

• Document type Academic report
• Countries list United States

Shattered Justice presents original crime victims’ experiences with violent crime, investigations and trials, and later exonerations in their cases. Using in-depth interviews with 21 crime victims across the United States, Cook reveals how homicide victims’ family members and rape survivors describe the painful impact of the primary trauma, the secondary trauma of the investigations and trials, and then the tertiary trauma associated with wrongful convictions and exonerations. Important lessons and analyses are shared related to grief and loss, and healing and repair. Using restorative justice practices to develop and deliver healing retreats for survivors also expands the practice of restorative justice. Finally, policy reforms aimed at preventing, mitigating, and repairing the harms of wrongful convictions is covered.

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States

“The President, his administration and Congress must recognize that respect for human dignity and retention of the death penalty are incompatible; that respect for the rule of law must include international human rights law guaranteeing protection of the rights of those facing the death penalty; that upholding universal rights must include upholding the right of everyone to life and freedom from cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; and that making international institutions stronger must include implementing the conclusions of UN human rights treaty bodies,”

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list United States

1. The Committee last reviewed the United States’ compliance with the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination in 2014. Among the 2014 Concluding Observations are two recommendations relevant to this Report. 2. The Committee stated that it “remain[ed] concerned that members of racial and ethnic minorities, particularly African Americans, continue to be disproportionately arrested, incarcerated and subjected to harsher sentences, including life imprisonment without parole and the death penalty.” Among other things, the Committee encouraged “[a]mending laws and policies leading to racially disparate impacts in the criminal justice system … and implementing effective national strategies or plans of action aimed at eliminating structural discrimination.” The Committee specifically encouraged “[i]mposing a moratorium on the death penalty, at the federal level, with a view to abolishing the death penalty.”1 3. The Committee also commented on “the ongoing challenges faced by indigent persons belonging to racial and ethnic minorities to access legal counsel in criminal proceedings in practice.” The Committee encouraged the adoption of “all necessary measures to eliminate the disproportionate impact of systemic inadequacies in criminal defence programmes on indigent defendants belonging to racial and ethnic minorities, including by improving the quality of legal representation provided to indigent defendants.”2 4. This report addresses the United States’ compliance with its human rights obligations under the Convention with regard to the death penalty, including with respect to those areas identified in the Committee’s 2014 Concluding Observations as described above.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list United States

The Government of the Philippines has taken commendable steps toward protecting and promoting the rights of women overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), but those workers remain vulnerable to exploitation and abuse, and when they come into conflict with the law in their host countries, their vulnerabilities are compounded by linguistic and legal barriers, as well as judicial systems which fail to account for the gendered context in which they allegedly committed criminal acts. The Government of the Philippines should do more to ensure protection of the rights of these women OFWs, particularly when they are at risk of being sentenced to death.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list Philippines
• Themes list Women

Tunisia carried out its last execution in 1991, over 30 years ago. Despite this de facto moratorium on executions, Tunisian courts continue to sentence people to death. Courts sentence people to death every year for a variety of crimes, especially terrorism. The current administration is undoing many of the positive changes to the Tunisian judicial system brought about by the 2011 revolution, and public opinion is divided over whether to move forward with abolition, maintain the status quo, or even resume executions, a course of action that some politicians and officials within the government support. Tunisia continues to support the UN resolutions aiming to establish a global moratorium on executions but has refused to ratify the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

This report recommends that Tunisia maintain its commitment to the UN moratorium and move to ratify the Second Optional Protocol, while also working to restore the independence of its judiciary and reducing the total number of crimes punishable by death in the short term. In the long-term Tunisia should completely and unconditionally abolish the death penalty.

• Document type NGO report / World Coalition
• Countries list Tunisia
• Themes list Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment and Punishment

This report addresses the Maldives’ compliance with its human rights obligations with respect to the death penalty. Despite its long-standing, de facto moratorium on executions, the Maldives sentenced two people to death in 2019, after sentencing no one to death in 2018.[1] At the end of 2019, there were 19 people on death row in the Maldives – three of whom had exhausted their appeals and five of whom were juveniles when the crime was committed.[2] The Maldives sentenced another individual to death in 2022, which represented the first time the country sentenced a foreign national to death.[3] The continued use of the death penalty in sentencing is particularly concerning given evidence of due process violations, including the use of torture to obtain confessions, the lack of effective and accessible complaint mechanisms for detained individuals, the lack of an independent judiciary, and the use of the death penalty as a sentence for crimes committed by juveniles.

• Document type NGO report / World Coalition
• Countries list Maldives
• Themes list Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment and Punishment

This report addresses Ethiopia’s compliance with its human rights obligations with regard to the death penalty. Although there are currently at least 147 people on death row in Ethiopia, the country has not carried out any executions during the reporting period and has also pardoned and released 41 additional death row inmates since that time.[1] The Federal Supreme Court of Ethiopia has also issued sentencing guidelines that purport to further reduce the likelihood of persons being sentenced to death as a punishment for their crimes.[2] Nonetheless, Ethiopia has not taken concrete steps to reduce the number of crimes eligible for the death penalty, and the use of torture and other due process violations related to judicial proceedings render all death sentences arbitrary.

• Document type NGO report / World Coalition
• Countries list Ethiopia

The State of Palestine on 1 April 2014 ratified the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. On 28 December 2017, the State of Palestine signed the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. On 18 March 2019, the State of Palestine also ratified the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which aims to abolish the death penalty. The State of Palestine has not yet abolished the death penalty. Indeed-as described herein-the 14 June 2007 split in power between the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah in the West Bank under President Abbas, and the Hamas movement in Gaza, has been followed by many documented executions in Gaza without the requisite signature of President Abbas, and Gazan military courts conduct trials of civilians, where they can be sentenced to death.

This report considers the prevalence of torture and other issues ancillary to the death penalty itself: confessions under torture or degrading treatment, due process, access to legal counsel, death-row conditions, and methods of execution.

• Document type NGO report / World Coalition
• Countries list State of Palestine

On June 29, 1972, the United States Supreme Court decided Furman v. Georgia, striking down all existing death penalty laws in the United States and ushering in the modern era of the U.S. death penalty. In the decades that followed—as jurisdictions revised their death-sentencing procedures in response to the Supreme Court’s rulings on capital punishment—thousands of people were sentenced to death.

The Death Penalty Census is DPIC’s effort to identify and document every death sentence imposed in the U.S. since Furman. The census captures more than 9,700 death sentences imposed between the Supreme Court’s issuance of the Furman ruling and January 1, 2021. These sentences were imposed in 1,280 counties across 40 states, as well as by the federal government and the U.S. Military.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list United States

A Death Penalty Information Center Analysis of 185 Death-Row Exonerations Shows Most Wrongful Convictions Are Not Merely Accidental.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Innocence

Supreme Court rhetoric, scholarly discussion, blackletter law, and ethical rules have perpetuated a myth that individual rights protect the autonomy of defendants within the criminal legal system. To expose this myth, I examine six rights that the Court has enshrined as essential decision points for criminal defendants due to the rights’ purported expressive and consequential functions: (1) the right to self-representation; (2) the right to plead guilty; (3) the right to waive a jury; (4) the right to testify; (5) the right to waive appeals; and (6) the right to maintain innocence at a capital trial. I conclude that each of these rights fails to protect defendant autonomy.

I then argue that genuine displays of autonomy under the criminal legal system take the form of resistance to the law, legal advocates, and the legal system. Thus, the autonomy of criminal defendants occurs not because of law but in spite of it. As such, scholarly discussions of the personal autonomy of criminal defendants should focus not on rights and rules but on acts of resistance. The current autonomy rights discourse is harmful because it obscures the system’s defects by framing discussions around individual rights instead of structural limitations. This lends itself to solutions involving procedural tinkering to better actualize individual rights instead of radical structural reform or abolition. By obscuring these structural defects and stressing the system’s protective qualities, the autonomy rights discourse presents the system not only as legitimate, but as functional, and potentially even successful. As such, a new scholarly frame is warranted: autonomy as resistance to law and the legal system. By illuminating the ways in which autonomy in the criminal legal system resembles autonomy under the American institution of slavery, the autonomy as resistance frame exposes the need for radical structural change and facilitates a reimagining of the criminal legal system.

• Document type Article
• Countries list United States

This Ratification Kit is designed for government decision-makers. It gives the procedure to ratify or accede to the Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty, and arguments to convince target countries to endorse it. Governments are not likely to have an expert understanding of the Second Optional Protocol. This document may contain answers to government concerns that will be addressed to you during your lobbying action.

• Document type Lobbying
• Countries list Guinea
• Available languages Kit de Ratificación - GuineaKit de ratification - Guinée

This Ratification Kit is designed for government decision-makers. It gives the procedure to ratify or accede to the Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty, and arguments to convince target countries to endorse it. Governments are not likely to have an expert understanding of the Second Optional Protocol. This document may contain answers to government concerns that will be addressed to you during your lobbying action.

• Document type Lobbying
• Countries list Congo
• Available languages Kit de Ratificación - CongoKit de ratification - Congo

This Ratification Kit is designed for government decision-makers. It gives the procedure to ratify or accede to the Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty, and arguments to convince target countries to endorse it. Governments are not likely to have an expert understanding of the Second Optional Protocol. This document may contain answers to government concerns that will be addressed to you during your lobbying action.

• Document type Lobbying
• Countries list Suriname
• Available languages Kit de Ratificación - SurinamKit de ratification - Suriname

This Ratification Kit is designed for government decision-makers. It gives the procedure to ratify or accede to the Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty, and arguments to convince target countries to endorse it. Governments are not likely to have an expert understanding of the Second Optional Protocol. This document may contain answers to government concerns that will be addressed to you during your lobbying action.

• Document type Lobbying
• Countries list Burundi
• Available languages Kit de Ratificación - BurundiKit de ratification - Burundi

This Ratification Kit is designed for government decision-makers. It gives the procedure to ratify or accede to the Protocol and arguments to convince target countries to endorse it. Governments are not likely to have an expert understanding of the Second Optional Protocol. This document may contain answers to government concerns that will be addressed to you during your lobbying action.

• Document type Academic report
• Countries list Samoa
• Themes list International law,
• Available languages Kit de Ratification - SamoaKit de ratificación - SamoaKit de ratification - Samoa

This Ratification Kit is designed for government decision-makers. It gives the procedure to ratify or accede to the Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty, and arguments to convince target countries to endorse it. Governments are not likely to have an expert understanding of the Second Optional Protocol. This document may contain answers to government concerns that will be addressed to you during your lobbying action.

• Document type Lobbying
• Countries list Côte d'Ivoire
• Available languages Kit de Ratificación - Côte d'IvoireKit de ratification - Côte d'Ivoire

This Ratification Kit is designed for government decision-makers. It gives the procedure to ratify or accede to the Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty, and arguments to convince target countries to endorse it. Governments are not likely to have an expert understanding of the Second Optional Protocol. This document may contain answers to government concerns that will be addressed to you during your lobbying action.

• Document type Lobbying
• Countries list Marshall Islands
• Available languages Kit de Ratificación - Islas MarshallKit de ratification - Îles Marshall

This Ratification Kit is designed for government decision-makers. It gives the procedure to ratify or accede to the Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty, and arguments to convince target countries to endorse it. Governments are not likely to have an expert understanding of the Second Optional Protocol. This document may contain answers to government concerns that will be addressed to you during your lobbying action.

• Document type Lobbying
• Countries list Fiji
• Available languages Kit de Ratificación - FiyiKit de ratification - Fidji

This Ratification Kit is designed for government decision-makers. It gives the procedure to ratify or accede to the Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty, and arguments to convince target countries to endorse it. Governments are not likely to have an expert understanding of the Second Optional Protocol. This document may contain answers to government concerns that will be addressed to you during your lobbying action.

• Document type Lobbying
• Countries list Burkina Faso
• Available languages Kit de Ratificación - Burkina FasoKit de ratification - Burkina Faso

Ce kit de ratification est à destination des décideur·e·s politiques et donne la procédure de ratification ainsi que les arguments pour convaincre le gouvernement d’adopter le deuxième Protocole facultatif se rapportant au Pacte international relatif aux droits civils et politiques, visant à abolir la peine de mort. Les gouvernements n’ont habituellement pas de connaissances approfondies du Protocole. Ce matériel peut contenir des réponses aux questions qui vous seront adressées lors de vos actions de lobbying.

• Document type Lobby
• Countries list Côte d'Ivoire / Côte d'Ivoire
• Available languages Ratification Kit - Côte d'IvoireKit de Ratificación - Côte d'Ivoire

In 2021, The Death Penalty Project and the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, in partnership with the Australian National University commissioned Prof. Carolyn Hoyle, Director of The Death Penalty Research Unit, at the University of Oxford, to undertake research in order to provide accurate data on attitudes towards the death penalty in Kenya and facilitate a constructive conversation on the future of capital punishment. The research examined the views of both the general public in Kenya and also opinion formers, those considered influential in shaping, and responding to, national views.

Key findings :

– The vast majority of opinion formers that took part in the interviews were in favour of abolishing the death penalty.
– 90% of opinion formers were in favour of abolishing the death penalty
– 82% of opinion formers were strongly in favour of of abolishing the death penalty
– Most of the opinion formers interviewed were very well informed on the administration of the death penalty in Kenya.
– Across both groups there were concerns around the possibility that innocent people could be sentenced to death.
– 88% of opinion formers believe wrongful convictions occur fairly regularly
– 93% of opinion formers thought Kenya should be influenced by high rates of abolition around the world
– Opinion formers believed that 75% of the public would accept abolition of the death penalty, despite initial reservations.

• Document type Rapport d’ONG
• Countries list Kenya
• Themes list Public Opinion 

In 2021, The Death Penalty Project and the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, in partnership with the Australian National University commissioned Prof. Carolyn Hoyle, Director of The Death Penalty Research Unit, at the University of Oxford, to undertake research in order to provide accurate data on attitudes towards the death penalty in Kenya and facilitate a constructive conversation on the future of capital punishment. The research examined the views of both the general public in Kenya and also opinion formers, those considered influential in shaping, and responding to, national views.

Key findings:

– 40% in favour of abolishing the death penalty, 10% did not know either way
– 51% in favour of retaining the death penalty, only 32% strongly in favour
– Those against the death penalty believed that criminals deserved the opportunity for rehabilitation.
– Knowledge of the death penalty appears to be limited, just 66% were aware Kenya retains the death penalty and just 21% knew no executions had take place in the past 10 years
– The public expressed concerns around the possibility that innocent people could be sentenced to death: 61% of the public – including retentionists – thought that ‘many’ or ‘some’ innocent people have been sentenced to death in Kenya; only 8% thought that ‘no innocent people have been sentenced to death’
– Public support fell from 51% to 31% when considering abolition in the region
59% of the public, who were initially in favour of retention, said that they would accept a new policy of abolition

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list Kenya
• Themes list Public Opinion 

Since 2010, persons convicted of rape offences were executed in at least 9 countries, including India and Pakistan. Moreover, public protests against the rape epidemic, which led governments to introduce capital rape laws, illustrates the need to shine a spotlight in South Asia.

The report examines the use of the death penalty for rape in four South Asian countries: Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka and explores ways that anti-death penalty activists can challenge this concerning trend.

• Document type Arguments against the death penalty / NGO report
• Countries list Bangladesh / India / Pakistan / Sri Lanka

The 120-page report assesses and analyses trends in death penalty practices in order to propose recommendations, tailored to the national context, and to engage in a constructive dialogue on capital punishment in the country.

The death penalty situation in the Islamic Republic of Iran remains alarming with a significant increase in executions in 2021 (+25%) and an increasing number of Iranian women being executed. The number of executions has doubled after the election of Ebrahim Raeisi as President, and as the Islamic Republic and Western governments negotiate to revive the nuclear deal, also called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). These are some of the main findings of the 14th Annual Report on the Death Penalty in Iran by Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO) and Ensemble Contre la Peine de Mort (ECPM) released today.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list Iran (Islamic Republic of)
• Available languages Rapport annuel sur la peine de mort en Iran 2021

In 2019-20, The Department of Law at the University of Dhaka, in collaboration with the Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust (BLAST) and The Death Penalty Project, conducted a study to investigate socio-economic characteristics and experiences of death row prisoners in Bangladesh.

Bangladesh continues to retain and implement the death penalty, with several executions taking place each year. Excluding laws relating to the defence forces and international crimes, there are currently 33 crimes punishable by death. 25 of these offences are non-lethal and arguably do not meet the threshold of the ‘most serious crimes’ under international law.

Inspired by similar studies in other countries, a pilot study was commissioned to examine the demographics and experiences of those sentenced to death. Consistent with those studies around the world, our findings evidence that the death penalty in Bangladesh is disproportionately used against the most vulnerable and marginalised sections of society.

72% of prisoners were classified as economically vulnerable
53% of prisoners were in low-paid work or unemployed
87% of prisoners had no qualifications beyond secondary school level
15% of prisoners had no formal education.

The study also raised serious concerns around the treatment of prisoners, the length of time prisoners spent in prison under the sentence of death and the integrity of criminal investigations and trial.

33% of prisoners’ families alleged their relative had been tortured in police custody, 5% suspected this and 15% refused to comment
60% of respondents were not satisfied with the trial process, with some claiming that the courts had failed to properly appreciate the evidence
On average it took over 10 years for death row cases to be disposed by the HCD (where sentences are confirmed). Prolonged time spent in isolation on death row, has been declared inhumane and degrading in many countries.

The sample consisted of 39 individuals on death row, evidence from their case files and face-to-face interviews with their families were conducted under rigorous ethical guidelines to reveal their profiles and experiences. Despite its small size, the sample is indicative of the general prison population allowing us to draw conclusions on possible trends.

• Document type Academic report / NGO report
• Countries list Bangladesh
• Themes list Death Row Conditions 

1. This report addresses the Philippines’ compliance with its international human rights
obligations with respect to the death penalty. For years, the Philippines imposed the death
penalty, particularly for so-called heinous crimes. In 2006, President Gloria MacapagalArroyo abolished the death penalty.1 Since then, however, lawmakers have introduced
numerous bills to reinstate the death penalty, with the House adopting Bill No. 7814 as
recently as March 2, 2021.2

2. The report examines the current state of the death penalty in the Philippines, including (1)
acceptance of international norms; (2) proposed legislation reintroducing the death penalty;
(3) torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment in enforcing drug control; (4)
conditions of detention; and (5) administration of justice and fair trial.

3. This report recommends that the Philippines continue the abolition of the death penalty,
refrain from reintroducing the death penalty, honor its international commitments, and
implement a human rights-based approach to anti-drug policy

• Document type NGO report / World Coalition
• Countries list Philippines

Pakistan’s criminal justice system fails to provide meaningful protection to persons suffering from mental illness at all stages of arrest, trial, sentencing and detention. Under Pakistani law, a person of unsound mind is unable to form criminal intent and therefore is not subject to punishment. Despite this, a disproportionate number of mentally ill prisoners are currently in Pakistan’s jails and on death row.

In light of the above, JPP, in collaboration with Monash University Australia, is launching a report titled “Trapped Inside: Mental Illness & Incarceration”, a comprehensive review of Pakistani law and practice with regards to mentally ill prisoners and defendants. This report seeks to help relevant stakeholders to better understand and respond appropriately to the mental health needs of individuals across the criminal justice system. It focuses on the steps stakeholders can take to promote and protect mental health and well-being of individuals at each stage. The report also explores last year’s landmark ‘Safia Bano’ judgement by Pakistan’s Supreme Court, which commuted the death sentences of two mentally ill death row prisoners, banned the execution of prisoners with psycho-social disabilities and set key safeguards for the same.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list Pakistan
• Themes list Mental Illness

In 2021, The Death Penalty Project and the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty (TAEDP) commissioned Professor Carolyn Hoyle at the University of Oxford and Professor Shiow-duan Hawang at Soochow University, Taipei to carry out a study exploring Taiwanese legislators’ attitudes towards capital punishment.

The study reveals that the majority of Taiwan’s legislators would like to see the death penalty abolished. The risk of wrongful convictions, the abuse of human rights and a recognition that the death penalty has no unique deterrent effect, were the primary reasons cited for supporting abolition. Additionally, a majority of legislators interviewed expressed fairly low levels of trust in the Taiwanese criminal justice system, with doubts raised over its ability to offer adequate safeguards to individuals facing capital trials.

Key findings:

– 61% of legislators interviewed are in favour of abolishing the death penalty
– 39% of legislators interviewed are in favour of retaining the death penalty, but only one legislator was strongly in favour
– 71% of retentionists and 65% of abolitionists asserted that wrongful convictions ‘sometimes’ occurred
– Only 11% of legislators interviewed thought that wrongful convictions ‘rarely’ occur
– All legislators interviewed expressed a preference for social justice measures, such as poverty reduction, over increased executions when asked to rank a range of policies aimed at reducing violent crime

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list Taiwan
• Themes list Public Opinion 
• Available languages 台灣立法委員對死刑 之意見調查

Although other countries have largely rejected the felony murder doctrine, 48 states, the District of Columbia, and the federal government still use these laws. Felony murder laws compel harsh decades-long – or even life – sentences even when the individual charged did not directly cause or intend the loss of life.

This report evaluates the legal and empirical foundation, and failings, of the felony murder rule, profiles impacted individuals, and highlights recent reform efforts in 10 jurisdictions. Key findings include:

1. Felony murder laws widen the net of extreme sentencing and are counterproductive to public safety.
2. Felony murder laws have particularly adverse impacts on people of color, young people, and women.
3. Existing reforms must be expanded to achieve justice.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list United States

In this report, we summarise the current international position on clemency and the death penalty and compare it to snapshots of the clemency processes in the following Southeast and East Asian countries: Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, Japan, Taiwan, and China. All references to clemency in this paper are in the context of reprieve from the death penalty.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list China / Indonesia / Japan / Malaysia / Singapore / Taiwan / Thailand / Viet Nam
• Themes list Clemency

Cuba has maintained a de facto moratorium on the imposition of the death penalty since its last reported execution in 2003. In 2010, Cuba’s Supreme Court commuted the death sentence of Cuba’s last remaining death row inmate. As of the date of this report, there is no record of an individual currently sentenced to death. Although a de facto moratorium is in place, Cuba has not committed to a de jure abolition of the death penalty, citing national security concerns.

• Document type NGO report / World Coalition
• Countries list Cuba
• Themes list Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment and Punishment

This report provides an update to the coauthors’ report at the List of issues stage and responds to the State party’s responses to the Committee’s questions in the List of issues that touch on the death penalty.

• Document type NGO report / World Coalition
• Countries list Iraq

Project 39A at the National Law University, Delhi published the sixth edition of the Death Penalty in India: Annual Statistics Report which provides an annual update on the use of the death penalty in India along with legislative and international developments on the issue. As on 31st December 2021, there were 488 prisoners on death row across India (a steep rise of nearly 21% from 2020), with Uttar Pradesh having the highest number at 86. This is the highest the death row population has been since 2004 as per the data from the Prison Statistics published by the National Crime Records Bureau.

• Document type Academic report
• Countries list India

Detention conditions for women in Malawi are crowded, and women in prisons are not given adequate food and nutrition. Specifically, many prisons only serve people with one meal a day, often consisting of a maize meal (nsima) and peas or beans. Overcrowded conditions are a particular concern during the COVID-19 pandemic, when risk of transmission of the disease is high. Prison conditions in Malawi amount to inhuman and degrading treatment.

Women in death penalty proceedings in Malawi lack access to qualified legal representation. Defense advocates in Malawi who are assigned to capital cases often lack relevant experience. In at least one case, a lawyer failed to raise the complete defense of self-defense in representing a woman who killed her husband as a result of a long history of domestic abuse. Had the defense been raised, it is possible that the woman would not have been sentenced to death. Moreover, women from poor and marginalized communities are disproportionately affected by the death penalty because when they are accused of crimes, they are often unable to understand the charges against them because they are illiterate and cannot read the complaint against them. They are also unable to retain private counsel.

Women who face extensive gender-based violence are disproportionately affected by the death penalty in Malawi, including those who seek to protect themselves against their abusers. Long histories of gender-based violence can result in complex trauma and can exacerbate psycho-social or intellectual disabilities, yet sentencing courts fail to take these nefarious effects into account as factors in mitigation of a death sentence.

• Document type NGO report / World Coalition
• Countries list Malawi
• Themes list Women

Qatar had been maintaining a de facto moratorium on executions since 2000, but courts continued to sentence people to death. In 2020, however, Qatar executed a Nepali migrant worker by firing squad. Qatar’s death penalty practices are not in compliance with the Covenant. Qatar does not limit the death penalty to the most serious crimes, it is not taking steps toward a de jure moratorium on executions or ratification of the Second Optional Protocol, and it does not ensure that defendants in capital cases have a fair trial. Recent history suggests that a migrant worker may be more likely to be sentenced to death and executed for killing a Qatari national, as opposed to a non-citizen. Migrant workers are particularly vulnerable in the context of the country’s criminal legal system.

• Document type NGO report / World Coalition
• Countries list Qatar

The death penalty in the USA in 2021 was defined by two competing forces: the continuing long-term erosion of capital punishment across most of the country, and extreme conduct by a dwindling number of outlier jurisdictions to continue to pursue death sentences and executions.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list United States

Salam for Democracy and Human Rights (Salam DHR)’s report was published on October 10, 2021, to mark the 19th World Day Against the Death Penalty. The Death Penalty in Bahrain: A system built on torture, provides accessible and abridged information regarding the development of the death penalty in Bahrain.

This report examines how executions have expanded in both their criteria and implementation since the Arab Spring in 2011 and how this practice contradicts the Government of Bahrain’s (GoB) promises of reform made following the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI) that same year. Instead, the Bahraini State continues to rely on confessions coerced under torture and threats as a method of permanently silencing poliIcal prisoners. The nation’s internal mechanisms of accountability have repeatedly proven themselves to be ineffective in remedying this situation and are possibly complicit. Considering these findings, and in support those who have been victimized, Salam DHR officially recommends that the GoB abolishes the death penalty, among other reforms.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list Bahrain
• Available languages عقوبة الإعدام في البحرين : نظام مبني على التعذيبLa Peine de Mort à Bahreïn: Un Système Construit sur la Torture

This paper updates The Death Penalty in the OSCE Area: Background Paper 2020. It is intended to provide a concise update to highlight changes in the status of the death penalty in OSCE participating States since the previous publication and to promote constructive discussion of the issue. It covers the period from 1 April 2020 to 31 March 2021. Special Focus: The road to abolition in selected OSCE participating States

• Document type Regional body report
• Countries list Belarus / United States
• Available languages Смертная казнь в регионе ОБСЕ, Справочный документ 2021 года

This report addresses Uganda’s compliance with its obligations under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women with respect to the death penalty. The report examines and discusses Ugandan death penalty laws and cases where women are sentenced to death row in Uganda, primarily for murder.

This report recommends that Uganda adopt a number of key recommendations to better align its death penalty practices with Uganda’s obligations to women under the Convention. These steps, among other things, include: (1) abolishing the death penalty and in the interim, limiting the death penalty to only the most serious crimes of intentional killing of another human; (2) ensuring proper gender-sensitive training in the judicial system and protecting women in conflict with the law when gender-based violence is involved; (3) developing and implementing programs to prevent gender-based violence and discrimination; and (4) ensuring fair access to counsel to women sentenced to death or at risk of being sentenced to death.

• Document type NGO report / World Coalition
• Countries list Uganda
• Themes list Women

This report addresses Lebanon’s compliance with human rights obligations under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women regarding its use of the death penalty.

Lebanon has not abolished the death penalty or established a de jure moratorium on the death penalty. The legal system does not protect women in conflict with the law from discrimination on the basis of sex or gender. Nor does it limit capital offenses to the “most serious” crimes.

Women migrant domestic workers appear to be at an elevated risk of being sentenced to death. Indeed, all three women known to be on death row in Lebanon are Sri Lankan migrant domestic workers. Such women face heightened obstacles to realizing their right to a fair trial. Moreover, there is no evidence that sentencing authorities take into account a woman’s history of abuse when determining an appropriate sentence. Finally, women under sentence of death face degrading conditions of detention.

• Document type NGO report / World Coalition
• Countries list Lebanon
• Themes list Women

The Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines issues this advisory to bring the Philippines’ attention to the heightened vulnerabilities of women Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs).

• Document type Government body report
• Countries list Philippines
• Themes list Drug Offenses / Legal Representation / Women
• Available languages Avis sur la vulnérabilité accrue des travailleuses migrantes dans le couloir de la mort

Foreign nationals, and within this group migrant workers, are a population that disproportionately faces the death penalty around the world. The data and statistics gathered by Reprieve and Migrant CARE for this report show that migrant workers as a sub-set of the foreign national population are at grave risk of human rights violations related to the death penalty, including arbitrary deprivation of the right to life in the context of unlawful death sentences and executions.

This report focuses on: states that receive migrant workers (‘receiving states’), in particular the states that make up the Association of South East Asian Nations or ASEAN (‘South East Asian states’) and the Gulf Cooperation Council (‘Gulf states’), and on states from which migrant workers travel to work (‘sending states’).

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list Indonesia / Malaysia / Nigeria / Pakistan / Saudi Arabia
• Themes list Fair Trial / Legal Representation / Women

As of 2020, blasphemy was formally criminalised in some 84 countries. As many as 21 countries criminalised apostasy as of 2019. The legal penalties for such offences range from fines to imprisonment to corporal punishment—and in at least 12 countries, the death penalty.

This report examines the extent to which States commit, or are complicit in, killings that violate religious freedom. Focussing on the 12 States in which offences against religion are lawfully punishable by death, we examine four different types of State-sanctioned killings on the basis of religious offence (apostasy, blasphemy, or alike) or affiliation (most commonly, membership of a religious minority): judicial executions, extrajudicial killings, killings by civilians, and killings by extremist groups. We explore the relationship between the retention of the death penalty for religious offences and other forms of State-sanctioned killings motivated by alleged religious offending or by religious identity.

• Document type Academic report
• Countries list Brunei Darussalam / Iran (Islamic Republic of) / Maldives / Mauritania / Nigeria / Qatar / Saudi Arabia / Somalia / United Arab Emirates / Yemen

The People’s Republic of China no doubt leads the world in both numbers of death sentences and executions. Despite being the largest user of the death penalty, China has never conducted a national poll on citizens’ opinions toward capital punishment, while claiming “overwhelming public support” as a major justification for its retention and use. Based on a content analysis of 38,512 comments collected from 63 cases in 2015, this study examines the diversity and rationales of netizens’ opinions of and interactions with China’s criminal justice system. In addition, the book discusses China’s social, systemic, and structural problems and critically examines the rationality of netizens’ opinions based on Habermas’s communicative rationality framework. Readers will be able to contextualize Chinese netizens’ discussions and draw conclusions about commonalities and uniqueness of China’s death penalty practice.

• Document type Academic report
• Countries list China
• Themes list Public Opinion 

In observation of the 2021 World Day Against the Death Penalty dedicated to women, Iran Human Rights is providing a report on the women executed in Iran over the last 12 years (2010-2021). The executions in this period are by no means representative of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s complete history of executing women; the number of female political prisoners executed in the 1980s must be acknowledged due to their sheer volume and abhorrent nature. But even today, there is ample evidence of their cruel and inhuman treatment of female prisoners, which will be highlighted in this report.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list Iran (Islamic Republic of)
• Themes list Women

A first of its kind report, Deathworthy, presents empirical data on mental illness and intellectual disability among death row prisoners in India and the psychological consequences of living on death row. The report finds that an overwhelming majority of death row prisoners interviewed (62.2%) had a mental illness and 11% had intellectual disability. The proportion of persons with mental illness and intellectual disability on death row is overwhelmingly higher than the proportion in the community population. The report also establishes correlations between conditions of death row incarceration and mental illness and ill-health. Led and conceptualised by Maitreyi Misra (Head, Mental Health and Criminal Justice, Project 39A, National Law University Delhi), the study was conducted under the guidance of Dr. Pratima Murthy (Director, NIMHANS), Dr Sanjeev Jain (Senior Professor, Deptt of Psychiatry, NIMHANS) and Dr Gitanjali Narayanan (Associate Professor, Deptt of Psychology, NIMHANS).

• Document type Academic report
• Countries list India
• Themes list Mental Illness

Women in conflict with the law in Yemen are at risk of experiencing gender-based discrimination within the legal system and while detained. Such discrimination is particularly acute when women are at risk of being sentenced to death. For example, in Houthi-controlled parts of Yemen, women are in danger of being sentenced to death for “spying,” often based primarily on the conduct of their male family members. In parts of the country controlled by the internationally recognized Government of Yemen, women accused of capital offenses are denied legal aid to mount a successful defense. And because of the mandatory nature of the death penalty for crimes such as murder, courts do not take into account an accused woman’s experiences of gender-based violence that may have motivated her actions. Women are also often financially unable to gather sufficient resources to pay “blood money” to victims’ families. Detention conditions for women, particularly in Houthi-controlled parts of Yemen, amount to cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment and in some cases prison authorities torture women detainees.

Because of continued internal conflict in Yemen, there is limited official data regarding the number of women currently sentenced to death. For the same reason, there is only limited information regarding detention conditions of women sentenced to death.

• Document type NGO report / World Coalition
• Countries list Yemen
• Themes list Women

The Maldives’ continued use of the death penalty undermines government efforts and commitments to end gender-based discrimination. The death penalty invites discriminatory sentences against women for adultery and other crimes of sexual immorality, as well as for acting as accomplices to murder committed by male counterparts. Capital punishment promotes negative stereotypes about women and reinforces discriminatory gender roles. The possibility of facing the death penalty also discourages human rights defenders from civic engagement on a number of human rights issues, including women’s human rights.

• Document type NGO report / World Coalition
• Countries list Maldives

Iran Human Rights (IHR); August 25, 2021: Pioneering Iranian alternative rock band, Kiosk have released a new musical film and album titled “Sweet Destiny.” Based on a historic 1853 photograph of a public execution by cannon fire in Iran, it is the first professional Farsi language album or film of its kind to be dedicated to the subject of the death penalty.

The story is narrated by the photographer who has been summoned to photograph the scene of the execution as proof and questions the defendant’s crime. Divided into 14 acts, the imagined story of the execution is layered with cultural and political metaphors and references. Kiosk’s rich and poignant songs create context, take the viewers through the history of Iran since 1853 and highlight the critical issues around the death penalty and human rights breaches in Iran. Using historical photographs, paintings and animation, Sweet Destiny is visually mesmerising and thought provoking with sprinkles of satire that masterfully cross cultural boundaries. The film is subtitled in English.  

• Document type Multimedia content
• Countries list Iran (Islamic Republic of)

The effectiveness of the death penalty to deter heinous crimes remains a contentious issue even though it has been abolished in many countries. Three years into President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration, the push to re-impose the death penalty is being taken seriously.

There is urgency in providing options to the drug problem other than killing drug suspects in the streets or sentencing them to death. The drug problem is a complex issue and exposes the human vulnerability of its users for criminal exploitation.

We propose here that addressing these vulnerabilities in a balanced and comprehensive manner through health-focused, rights-based criminal justice responses, conducting forensic science-based drug investigations and determining the social causes of drug abuse is an alternative solution that demands cooperation across different sectors of society as well as underscores the fundamental value of human life.

• Document type Academic report
• Countries list Philippines
• Themes list Drug Offenses

The Philippine Congress recently passed a bill amending the Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002 and reimposing the penalty of life imprisonment to death for specific-drug related offenses. House Bill No. 7814 also allows the presumption of guilt in certain drug-related crimes unless otherwise proven, thereby overturning the long-standing constitutional presumption of innocence.

The bill has been sent to the Senate for its concurrence and could only be several steps away before being signed into law by President Rodrigo R. Duterte. This paper discusses the ramifications of the new bill and the questioned timeliness of its passage when the country continues to have a large and overcrowded prison population and a significant number of deaths due to SARS-CoV-2 in Southeast Asia.

The government’s lapses in following the 2021 national vaccination plan became apparent in the 31 March 2021 assessment made by the congressional health panel on the government’s response to the pandemic.

From the authors’ perspective, the urgency of using the country’s limited resources to help medical frontliners and local government units prevent further infections and save lives should have outweighed the efforts exerted to pass a law that legalized the death penalty for the third time in the Philippines.

• Document type Academic report
• Countries list Philippines
• Themes list Drug Offenses

Findings from a preliminary study concerning the local abolitionist movement, risksto related civilsociety organizations and the identification of capacity building opportunities.

• Document type Campaigning
• Countries list Maldives
• Themes list Public Opinion 
• Available languages Empêcher le retour de la peine capitale aux Maldives

Findings of a study on the threats facing local civil society efforts to combat reinstroduction of the death penalty and the risks involved with reintroducing the death penalty in the Philippines.

• Document type Campaigning
• Countries list Philippines
• Themes list Public Opinion 
• Available languages Prévenir la réintroduction de la peine de mort aux Philippines

Findings from a preliminary study on the situation of human rights defenders in Turkey and the potential of a return to capital punishment.

• Document type Campaigning
• Countries list Turkey
• Themes list Public Opinion 
• Available languages Turquie : Quels sont les risques de rétablissement de la peine de mort ?

Reprieve wrote this report about the use of the death penalty in Egypt.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list Egypt
• Themes list Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment and Punishment / Death Row Conditions  / Fair Trial

އް ތަ ޑު ނގަ ން މި ގެ ތު ޢަ ރީ ޝަ ރި ވެ ފު ސާ ން އި ގެ ޭޖއް ރާ ހި ވެ ދި
2020ސް ވަ ދު ރާ ކު ގަ ހަ ފާ އި ގަ ރު ވަ ން ފެ ގެ ޔޭ ނި ދު ށް ޅަ ކޮ ދެ ބާ ދަ އަ ގެ ރު މ

• Document type Campaigning
• Countries list Maldives
• Themes list Fair Trial / Legal Representation

For the 18th World Day Against the Death Penalty this year is dedicated to the right to effective legal representation for individuals who face death sentences around the world. The theme of access to counsel reinforces the importance of fair trial standards in every legal system and judicial context.

• Document type Campaigning
• Countries list Maldives
• Themes list Fair Trial / Legal Representation

Pandangan Para Pembentuk Opini tentang Hukuman Mati di Indonesia

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list Indonesia
• Themes list Drug Offenses / Public Opinion 

This report presents statistics on persons who were under sentence of death or were executed in 2019

• Document type Government body report
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Death Row Conditions  / Drug Offenses

This report examines the extent to which states sanction the killing of sexual minorities. It looks beyond those countries that impose the death penalty for same-sex intimacy to the far greater number of countries in which state actors commission, condone, endorse and enable such killings.
He argues that the state-sanctioned killing of sexual minorities is often perpetrated well beyond the boundaries of the law, and even in countries that do not criminalise such conduct.

• Document type Academic report
• Countries list Australia
• Themes list Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment and Punishment

Upon receiving his execution date, one of the thousands of men living on death row in the United States had an epiphany: “All there ever is, is this moment. You, me, all of us, right here, right now, this minute, that’s love.”

Right Here, Right Now collects the powerful, first-person stories of dozens of men on death rows across the country. From childhood experiences living with poverty, hunger, and violence to mental illness and police misconduct to coming to terms with their executions, these men outline their struggle to maintain their connection to society and sustain the humanity that incarceration and its daily insults attempt to extinguish.

By offering their hopes, dreams, aspirations, fears, failures, and wounds, the men challenge us to reconsider whether our current justice system offers actual justice or simply perpetuates the social injustices that obscure our shared humanity.

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Death Row Conditions 

THE PHANTOM tells the story of one of the darkest episodes in the long history of American justice. A story of how the State of Texas knowingly sent an innocent man to his death and left a serial killer at large. A case in which – for the first time – it can be conclusively proven that the US courts executed a blameless man.

This film uncovers the shocking truth behind a tale of murder, corruption and lies that unfolded in the dusty, desperate streets of a Texas oil town nearly thirty years ago.

• Document type Multimedia content
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Innocence / Public Opinion 

More than 2500 individuals are now under sentence of death in the United States. At the same time, multiple indicators—public opinion polls, legislative repeal and judicial invalidation of deathpenalty laws, the reduction in new death sentences, and infrequency of executions—suggest that support for capital punishment has significantly eroded. As jurisdictions abandon or consider eliminating the death-penalty, the fate of prisoners on death row—whether their death sentences, valid when imposed, should be carried out or whether these individuals should instead be spared execution—looms as contentious political and legal issues, fraught with complex philosophical, penological, and constitutional questions. This article presents a detailed account of what has happened historically to persons awaiting execution, principally within the United States but also internationally, at the time capital-punishment legislation is repealed or invalidated (either completely, or with respect to a narrow category of crimes or persons). Our analysis has uncovered no instances of executions being carried out under those circumstances. This finding has important policy implications and is directly relevant to the Supreme Court’s Eighth Amendment jurisprudence, which relies on execution practices as one measure to help inform the Court about whether the death penalty is a cruel and unusual punishment.

• Document type Academic report
• Countries list United States

This report addresses Uganda’s compliance with its international human rights obligations with respect to the death penalty. The report examines and discusses the current state of the death penalty in Uganda, including (1) the broad scope of crimes that are eligible for the death penalty; (2) the lack of effective access to counsel in capital cases; (3) the occurrence of extrajudicial killings.

This report recommends that Uganda adopt a number of key steps to better align its death penalty practices with Uganda’s international human rights obligations. These steps include the following: establishing an official, de jure moratorium on the death penalty; reducing the number and scope of crimes that are eligible for the death penalty; reducing the maximum possible sentence from death to one that is fair, proportionate and in compliance with international human rights standards; and other measures

• Document type NGO report / World Coalition
• Countries list Uganda

This report addresses Zimbabwe’s compliance with its human rights obligations with respect to its use of the death penalty. The United Nations considers Zimbabwe a de facto abolitionist country. It has not carried out any executions since 2005. Courts, however, continue to sentence individuals to death, with 88 people currently on death row as of December 2020, after 8 sentences were commuted in April 2020. The new Zimbabwean Constitution (the “2013 Constitution”) has replaced the mandatory death penalty with a discretionary sentence for the crime of murder committed under aggravating circumstances. The 2013 Constitution further outlaws the imposition of the death penalty on women, men over the age of 70, and men under the age of 21 at the time the offence was committed. In its 2016 Universal Periodic Review, Zimbabwe noted all recommendations related to the death penalty, partly on the ground that Zimbabwean public opinion did not support abolition of death penalty. Since 2016, developments demonstrate a more positive attitude among the public and opinion leaders toward further reform and the abolition of death penalty.

This report focuses on various issues concerning the death penalty and related international human rights instruments, and on conditions of detention and acts of torture and ill treatment of people in detention. Specifically, this report recommends that Zimbabwe abolish the death penalty, improve detention conditions, ratify relevant human rights treaties, and increase resources dedicated to improving the justice system.

• Document type NGO report / World Coalition
• Countries list Zimbabwe

In 2019-20, The Death Penalty Project, in partnership with LBH Masyarakat and the University of Indonesia, commissioned Professor Carolyn Hoyle, of The Death Penalty Research Unit at the University of Oxford to conduct research investigating attitudes towards the death penalty in Indonesia. The findings have been presented in a two-part report; the first details the findings of a nuanced public survey and the second details the findings of interviews conducted with opinion formers. The public opinion research was undertaken by surveying a stratified random sample of 1,515 respondents – a sample large enough to make inferences from the data about the views of the overall population.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list Indonesia
• Themes list Drug Offenses / Public Opinion 

In 2019-20, The Death Penalty Project, in partnership with LBH Masyarakat and the University of Indonesia, commissioned Professor Carolyn Hoyle, of The Death Penalty Research Unit at the University of Oxford to conduct research investigating attitudes towards the death penalty in Indonesia.
The findings have been presented in a two-part report; the first details the findings of a nuanced public survey and the second details the findings of interviews conducted with opinion formers.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list Indonesia
• Themes list Drug Offenses / Public Opinion 

External Evaluation of the project “Preventing the risk of resurgence of the death penalty in three abolitionist countries” of 36 months in the Maldives, Philippines and Turkey

• Document type World Coalition
• Countries list Maldives / Philippines / Turkey
• Available languages Appel d'Offre Evaluation 2021

Isolation and Desolation – Conditions of Detention of People Sentenced to Death in Malaysia is the first ever fact-finding mission report on the conditions of detention of death row prisoners in Malaysia.

It examines the use of death penalty in Malaysia as well as the actual situation of people on death row.

This report is not meant to point fingers but rather to put the facts on the table in a transparent manner and work from there. It is mainly an advocacy tool for all abolitionist stakeholders, from civil society actors to the parliamentarians who will keep fighting for the abolition of the death penalty.

—————————————
Isolation and Desolation – Conditions of Detention of People Sentenced to Death di Malaysia adalah satu-satunya laporan berasaskan misi mengkaji fakta (fact-finding mission) mengenai keadaan-keadaan penahanan bagi banduan-banduan hukuman mati di Malaysia.

Laporan ini mengkaji pelaksanaan hukuman mati di Malaysia dan juga keadaan sebenar orang-orang yang dijatuhkan hukuman mati.

Laporan ini bukan bertujuan untuk menunding jari terhadap mana-mana pihak, tetapi bertujuan untuk memberi pencerahan kepada fakta-fakta yang ditemui dan berusaha ke atasnya. Laporan ini bertujuan utama sebagai alat advokasi kepada semua pihak yang mempunyai kepentingan dalam pemansuhan, bermula dari ahli persatuan kemasyarakatan sehingga ahli parlimen yang akan berusaha berterusan untuk memansuhkan hukuman mati.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list Malaysia
• Themes list Death Row Conditions 

Isolation and Desolation – Conditions of Detention of People Sentenced to Death in Malaysia is the first ever fact-finding mission report on the conditions of detention of death row prisoners in Malaysia.

It examines the use of death penalty in Malaysia as well as the actual situation of people on death row.

This report is not meant to point fingers but rather to put the facts on the table in a transparent manner and work from there. It is mainly an advocacy tool for all abolitionist stakeholders, from civil society actors to the parliamentarians who will keep fighting for the abolition of the death penalty.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list Malaysia
• Themes list Death Row Conditions 
• Available languages Isolement et désespoir conditions de détention des condamnés à mort Malaisie

Overview

This document has been prepared by the Community of Sant’Egidio, Reprieve and the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty to assist the Commissioners ahead of the 2nd/3rd periodic report of the Government of Malawi that covers the reporting period of 2015-2019.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list Malawi

The 13th annual report on the death penalty by Iran Human Rights (IHR) and ECPM (Together Against the Death Penalty) provides an assessment and analysis of the death penalty trends in 2020 in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list Iran (Islamic Republic of)
• Available languages گزارش ساالنه اعدام در ایران ۲۰۲۰

This brochure was developed by the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty with the Commission on the Human Rights in the Philippines. It explains why the death penalty risks returning in the Philippines and the reasons against its resurgence. It is available in 11 languages of the Philippines, plus French and English.

• Document type Campaigning
• Countries list Philippines
• Themes list Drug Offenses

This brochure was developed by the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty with the Commission on the Human Rights in the Philippines. It explains why the death penalty risks returning in the Philippines and the reasons against its resurgence. It is available in 11 languages of the Philippines, plus French and English.

• Document type Campaigning
• Countries list Philippines
• Themes list Drug Offenses

This brochure was developed by the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty with the Commission on the Human Rights in the Philippines. It explains why the death penalty risks returning in the Philippines and the reasons against its resurgence. It is available in 11 languages of the Philippines, plus French and English.

• Document type Campaigning
• Countries list Philippines
• Themes list Drug Offenses

This brochure was developed by the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty with the Commission on the Human Rights in the Philippines. It explains why the death penalty risks returning in the Philippines and the reasons against its resurgence. It is available in 11 languages of the Philippines, plus French and English.

• Document type Campaigning
• Countries list Philippines
• Themes list Drug Offenses

This brochure was developed by the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty with the Commission on the Human Rights in the Philippines. It explains why the death penalty risks returning in the Philippines and the reasons against its resurgence. It is available in 11 languages of the Philippines, plus French and English.

• Document type Campaigning
• Countries list Philippines
• Themes list Drug Offenses

This brochure was developed by the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty with the Commission on the Human Rights in the Philippines. It explains why the death penalty risks returning in the Philippines and the reasons against its resurgence. It is available in 11 languages of the Philippines, plus French and English.

• Document type Campaigning
• Countries list Philippines
• Themes list Drug Offenses

This brochure was developed by the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty with the Commission on the Human Rights in the Philippines. It explains why the death penalty risks returning in the Philippines and the reasons against its resurgence. It is available in 11 languages of the Philippines, plus French and English.

• Document type Campaigning
• Countries list Philippines
• Themes list Drug Offenses

This brochure was developed by the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty with the Commission on the Human Rights in the Philippines. It explains why the death penalty risks returning in the Philippines and the reasons against its resurgence. It is available in 11 languages of the Philippines, plus French and English.

• Document type Campaigning
• Countries list Philippines
• Themes list Drug Offenses

This brochure was developed by the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty with the Commission on the Human Rights in the Philippines. It explains why the death penalty risks returning in the Philippines and the reasons against its resurgence. It is available in 11 languages of the Philippines, plus French and English.

• Document type Campaigning
• Countries list Philippines
• Themes list Drug Offenses
• Available languages Maintenir l'abolition de la peine de mort aux Philippines (Français)

This brochure was developed by the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty with the Commission on the Human Rights in the Philippines. It explains why the death penalty risks returning in the Philippines and the reasons against its resurgence. It is available in 11 languages of the Philippines, plus French and English.

• Document type Campaigning
• Countries list Philippines
• Themes list Drug Offenses

This brochure was developed by the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty with the Commission on the Human Rights in the Philippines. It explains why the death penalty risks returning in the Philippines and the reasons against its resurgence. It is available in 11 languages of the Philippines, plus French and English.

• Document type Campaigning
• Countries list Philippines
• Themes list Drug Offenses

Maurice Chammah (The Marshall Project) explores the rise and fall of capital punishment in Texas where it appears to durably decline in spite of the state’s long use of the death penalty.

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Public Opinion 

This research is a contribution towards understanding why six small, independent island nations in the
Eastern Caribbean – Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, and St
Vincent and the Grenadines, all members of the OECS – and the neighbouring island of Barbados retain
the death penalty in their criminal statutes, and yet have not executed anyone sentenced to death for a
very long time. With the exception of St Kitts and Nevis, where an execution took place in 2008, no-one
has been judicially executed in any of the other countries for more than 20 years – and in Dominica,
Grenada, St Lucia and Barbados for more than 30 years. Furthermore, death sentences have been imposed
within the past 10 years only in St Lucia and Barbados, and in four of these seven nations no-one is under
sentence of death on ‘death row’ at the time of writing.
The questions posed by this publication are: why do these countries hang on to capital punishment
and what are the barriers and hindrances to the complete abolition of capital punishment by these
nations

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list Antigua and Barbuda / Barbados / Dominica / Grenada / Saint Kitts and Nevis / Saint Lucia / Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
• Themes list Trend Towards Abolition

Greater Caribbean for Life has launched its educational toolkit to assist activists and organisations as they work toward abolishing the death penalty in the Greater Caribbean. The production of this toolkit forms part of GCL’s activities under its EU partnered project to educate on death penalty abolition in the Eastern Caribbean and Barbados.

The launch of the toolkit is timely as a few of these target countries recently voted against adopting the UN Moratorium on the use of the death penalty and countries that had previously chosen to abstain have now firmly voted against the resolution.

GCL members condemn the rise of violent crime in our region and express solidarity and compassion with the victims of crime, however, we reject the notion that capital punishment will act as a deterrent or foster respect for life in our communities.

It is our hope that this toolkit will assist in promoting respect for the right to life for all human beings in the Caribbean region.

• Document type Lobbying
• Countries list Barbados
• Themes list Trend Towards Abolition

As the 47th session of the Council of Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) is being held on 27-28 November 2020 in Niamey, Niger, ECPM and Nael Georges release this study, “The Process of Abolishing the Death Penalty in Member States of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation”.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list Afghanistan / Albania / Algeria / Azerbaijan / Bahrain / Brunei Darussalam / Burkina Faso / Cameroon / Chad / Comoros / Djibouti / Egypt / Indonesia / Iran (Islamic Republic of) / Iraq / Jordan / Kazakhstan / Kuwait / Kyrgyzstan / Lebanon / Libya / Malaysia / Maldives / Mali / Morocco / Mozambique / Niger / Nigeria / Oman / Qatar / Saudi Arabia / Sierra Leone / Somalia / Sudan / Suriname / Tajikistan / Togo / Tunisia / Turkey / Turkmenistan / Uganda / United Arab Emirates / Uzbekistan
• Available languages مسارمإلغاء عقوبة الإعدافي الدول الأعضاءفي منظمة التعاونالإسلاميLes processus d’abolition de la peine de mort dans les États membres de l’Organisation de la coopération islamique (OCI)

• Document type Array
• Countries list Iran (Islamic Republic of)
• Themes list Drug Offenses / Fair Trial / Juveniles / Women

The Permanent Missions to the United Nations inNew York listed below have the honour to refer to General Assembly resolution 73/175, entitled “Moratorium on the use of the death penalty”, which was adopted by the Assembly on 17 December 2018 by a recorded vote. The Permanent Missions wish to place on record that they are in persistent objection to any attempt to impose a moratorium on the use of the death penalty or its abolition in contravention of existing stipulations under international law, for the following reasons:

• Document type United Nations report
• Countries list Bahrain / Bangladesh / Botswana / Brunei Darussalam / Chad / China / Democratic People's Republic of Korea / Egypt / Ethiopia / Grenada / Iran (Islamic Republic of) / Iraq / Jamaica / Kuwait / Libya / Nigeria / Oman / Pakistan / Papua New Guinea / Qatar / Saint Kitts and Nevis / Saint Lucia / Saint Vincent and the Grenadines / Saudi Arabia / Singapore / Sudan / Syrian Arab Republic / United Arab Emirates / Yemen / Zimbabwe
• Themes list Moratorium
• Available languages مذكرة شفوية مؤرخة 13 أيلول/سبتمبر 2019 موجهة إلى الأمين العام من الممثل الدائم لمصر لدى الأمم المتحدةNota verbal de fecha 13 de septiembre de 2019 dirigida al Secretario Generalpor el Representante Permanente de Egipto ante las Naciones UnidasNote verbale datée du 13 septembre 2019, adressée au Secrétaire général par le Représentant permanent de l’Égypte auprès de l’Organisation des Nations UniesВербальная нота Постоянного представителя Египта при Организации Объединенных Наций от 13 сентября 2019 года на имя Генерального секретаря2019年9月13日埃及常驻联合国代表给秘书长的普通照会

This Ratification Kit is designed for government decision-makers. It gives the procedure to ratify or accede to the Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty, and arguments to convince target countries to endorse it. Governments are not likely to have an expert understanding of the Second Optional Protocol. This document may contain answers to government concerns that will be addressed to you during your lobbying action.

• Document type Lobbying
• Countries list Peru
• Available languages Kit de Ratificación - PerúKit de ratification - Pérou

This Ratification Kit is designed for government decision-makers. It gives the procedure to ratify or accede to the Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty, and arguments to convince target countries to endorse it. Governments are not likely to have an expert understanding of the Second Optional Protocol. This document may contain answers to government concerns that will be addressed to you during your lobbying action.

• Document type Lobbying
• Countries list Guatemala
• Available languages Kit de Ratificación - GuatemalaKit de ratification - Guatemala

This Ratification Kit is designed for government decision-makers. It gives the procedure to ratify or accede to the Protocol to American Convention on Human Rights to Abolish the Death Penalty, and arguments to convince target countries to endorse it. Governments are not likely to have an expert understanding of the American Protocol. This document may contain answers to government concerns that will be addressed to you during your lobbying action.

• Document type Lobbying
• Countries list El Salvador
• Available languages Kit de Ratificación - El SalvadorKit de ratification - El Salvador

This Ratification Kit is designed for government decision-makers. It gives the procedure to ratify or accede to the Protocol to American Convention on Human Rights to Abolish the Death Penalty, and arguments to convince target countries to endorse it. Governments are not likely to have an expert understanding of the American Protocol. This document may contain answers to government concerns that will be addressed to you during your lobbying action.

• Document type Lobbying
• Countries list Colombia
• Available languages Kit de Ratificación - ColombiaKit de ratification - Colombie

This Ratification Kit is designed for government decision-makers. It gives the procedure to ratify or accede to the Protocol to American Convention on Human Rights to Abolish the Death Penalty, and arguments to convince target countries to endorse it. Governments are not likely to have an expert understanding of the American Protocol. This document may contain answers to government concerns that will be addressed to you during your lobbying action.

• Document type Lobbying
• Countries list Bolivia (Plurinational State of)
• Available languages Kit de Ratificación - BoliviaKit de ratification - Bolivie

This paper updates The Death Penalty in the OSCE Area: Background Paper 2019. It is intended to provide a concise update to highlight changes in the status of the death penalty in OSCE participating States since the previous publication and to promote constructive discussion of the issue. It covers the period from 1 April 2019 to 31 March 2020. Special Focus: Is the death penalty inherently arbitrary?

• Document type Regional body report
• Countries list Belarus / United States
• Available languages Смертная казнь в регионе ОБСЕ: Справочный документ 2020 года

This report draws on in-depth interviews with 42 opinion leaders on the death penalty, their knowledge of the criminal justice system, the likelihood of abolition and how that could be achieved. They represent the fields of politics, public service, law, religion, civil society, academia, and defence.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list Zimbabwe
• Themes list Public opinion,

This Ratification Kit is designed for government decision-makers. It gives the procedure to ratify or accede to the Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty, and arguments to convince target countries to endorse it. Governments are not likely to have an expert understanding of the Second Optional Protocol. This document may contain answers to government concerns that will be addressed to you during your lobbying action.

• Document type Lobbying
• Countries list Armenia
• Available languages Kit de Ratificación - ArmeniaKit de ratification - Arménie

Spring 2020 edition of Death Row USA, on the situation of the death penalty in the USA as of April 2020

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Statistics,

This Ratification Kit is designed for government decision-makers. It gives the procedure to ratify or accede to the Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty, and arguments to convince target countries to endorse it. Governments are not likely to have an expert understanding of the Second Optional Protocol. This document may contain answers to government concerns that will be addressed to you during your lobbying action.

• Document type Lobbying
• Countries list Kazakhstan
• Available languages Kit de Ratificación - KazajstánKit de ratification - Kazakhstan

Call for actions in the Philippines

• Document type Multimedia content
• Countries list Philippines
• Themes list World Coalition Against the Death Penalty, Death Penalty,

Just Mercy film discussion and reflections on racism in the US criminal justice system, scheduled on 22 July 2020.

• Document type Multimedia content
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Fair Trial, Death Penalty,

Despite the Saudi Arabian authorities’ rhetoric about reforms, they have unleashed an intense crackdown on citizens promoting change in the last few years. One of the instruments of that repression has been the Specialized Criminal Court (SCC), which was set up in 2008 to try individuals accused of terror-related crimes. Amnesty International has documented the cases of 95 individuals who were tried before the SCC between 2011 and 2019. It has concluded that the SCC’s judges have presided over grossly unfair trials, handing down prison sentences of up to 30 years and numerous death sentences, in an effort to silence dissent.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list Saudi Arabia
• Themes list Country/Regional profiles, Terrorism,
• Available languages AR Muzzling critical voicesArabia Saudí: Silenciar las voces críticas: Juicios politizados ante el Tribunal Penal Especializado de Arabia Saudí - Resumen ejecutivo y conclusionesتكميم الأفواه المعارِضة: محاكمات مسيّسة أمام المحكمة الجزائية المتخصصة في السعوديةArabie Saoudite: Reduire les voix critiques au silence: Des proces politises devant le Tribunal penal special en Arabie Saoudite

سٹس پراجیکٹ پاکستان نے سزائے موت کے قیدیوں کے لیے کام کے دوران پھانسیوں اور سزائے موت سے متعلق مواد اکٹھا کیا ہے۔ HURIDOCS کے تکنیکی تعاون سے جسٹس پراجیکٹ پاکستان نے اپنی تحقیق کو ایک اوپن سورس ڈیٹا بیس کی شکل دی ہے۔ یہ منصوبہ سزائے موت سے متعلق اعدادوشمار تک عام رسائی فراہم کرنے کی پہلی کڑی ہے، جس کا مقصد محققین، صحافیوں، وکلاء ، طلبہ، انسانی حقوق کے کارکنان اور عام لوگوں کو اس غیر انسانی اور غیر منصفانہ سزا سے متعلق مستند اعدادوشمار مہیا کرنا ہے۔ یہ ڈیٹا بیس نہ صرف جسٹس پراجیکٹ پاکستان کے اعدادوشمار تک رسائی فراہم کرتا ہے، بلکہ عام افراد کو اس میں مزید مواد کی شمولیت کی دعوت بھی دیتا ہے۔

• Document type Multimedia content
• Countries list Pakistan
• Themes list Statistics, Country/Regional profiles,
• Available languages Justice Project Pakistan Death Penalty Database

Nghiên cứu này nhằm đánh giá khả năng Việt Nam phê chuẩn Nghị định thư không bắt buộc thứ hai đối với Công ước quốc tế về các quyền dân sự và chính trị (ICCPR) nhằm xóa bỏ án tử hình. Nó phân tích: (a) khung pháp lý quốc tế hiện hành và quá trình phát triển pháp lý để xóa bỏ án tử hình ở các quốc gia được chọn, (b) sự tương thích giữa các quy định hiện hành về án tử hình trong hệ thống pháp luật Việt Nam và Nghị định thư tùy chọn thứ hai của ICCPR và (c) đánh giá tính khả thi để bãi bỏ án tử hình ở Việt Nam.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list Viet Nam
• Themes list International law, Country/Regional profiles,
• Available languages On the possibility of Viet Nam ratifying the Second Optional Protocol to the ICCPR aiming at the Abolition of the Death Penalty

Meskipun telah banyak penelitian telah dilakukan terkait dengan administrasi peradilan dalam kasus-kasus hukuman mati di Indonesia, hanya sedikit penelitian tentang kondisi penahanan seseorang yang dijatuhi hukuman mati di sebuah negara. Penelitian ini adalah salah satu penelitian pertama yang berfokus pada kondisi penahanan narapidana yang di hukum mati di Indonesia. Laporan ini bertujuan untuk memberikan suara kepada mereka yang mengalami hukuman mati di Indonesia dan juga pendapat dari keluarga mereka, bersamaan dengan mendokumentasikan situasi mereka.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list Indonesia
• Themes list Death Row Conditions, Country/Regional profiles,
• Available languages Dehumanized: The Prison Conditions of People Sentenced to Death in Indonesia

Hukuman mati dikekalkan di bawah undang-undang Malaysia untuk lebih 30 kesalahan dan selalu di laksanakan untuk kesalahan2 seperti- mengedar dadah- yang tidak sampai batas sempadan “jenayah paling serius”, yang mana perlaksanaan hukuman ini mesti di bataskan di bawah undang2 dan standard antarabangsa. Sehingga September 2019, lebih dari 1,290 orang telah di hokum mati. Kajian Amnesty International telah mengetengahkan beban hukuman mati dia Malaysia yang sebahagian besarnya terpikul di bahu pesalah yang disabitkan dengan kesalahan mengedar dadah, yang mana termasuklah wanita dan rakyat asing.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list Malaysia
• Themes list Women, Death Row Conditions, Country/Regional profiles,
• Available languages Defectos mortales - Por qué Malasia debe abolir la pena de muerte致命的缺陷 - 为何马来西亚必须废除死刑Fatally flawed: Why Malaysia must abolish the death penaltyDéfaillances mortelles: Pourquoi la Malaisie doit abolir la peine de mort

The late, great Ren Osugi (Hana-bi) stars as a prison chaplain working on death row in this thought-provoking chamber drama—his final film as an actor and first as a producer. Visiting with a regular roster of inmates who await their final sentence—including a converted ex-yakuza and a philosophy-spouting mass murderer—the newly appointed clergyman gradually learns of their circumstances and is forced to confront his own understanding of life, death and salvation. Featuring unforgettable characters and a restrained visual style, Dai Sako’s searching film takes on the rarely-addressed topic of Japan’s death penalty in order to question the state of the country’s soul.

• Document type Multimedia content
• Countries list Japan
• Themes list Retribution, Death Penalty, Country/Regional profiles,

This book documents the results of an IHR research project appraising the Philippine National Police’s commitment to human rights-based policing.

• Document type Book
• Countries list Philippines
• Themes list Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment and Punishment,

This report provides death row statistics and an update on executions in the US as of April 2018.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Death Penalty, Statistics,

Malaysia is one of only a handful of countries around the world that continues to retain a mandatory death penalty. The newly elected Malaysian government has promised to abolish mandatory death sentences and other “oppressive laws”. This short animation sheds light on what the mandatory death penalty is, what the Malaysian public think about it and why it is time to consign this abhorrent punishment to history.

• Document type Multimedia content
• Countries list Malaysia
• Themes list Public opinion, Drug Offences, Mandatory Death Penalty,

The final 72-hours in the life of Myuran Sukumaran, the Bali-9 convicted criminal who became an accomplished artist while in Kerobokan prison under the tutorship of artist Ben Quilty. Myuran was executed by Indonesian firing squad on Nusakambangan Island, 29 April 2015 alongside fellow Australian Andrew Chan and six others. Dramatic and archival material takes us into the final three days of Myuran Sukumaran’s life, as he farewells his family and creates his final paintings.

• Document type Multimedia content
• Countries list Indonesia
• Themes list Foreign Nationals, Firing Squad,

First as a reporter and then as a spokesperson for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Michelle was a frequent visitor to Huntsville’s Walls Unit, where she recorded and relayed the final moments of death row inmates’ lives before they were put to death by the state.Michelle was in the death chamber as some of the United States’ most notorious criminals, including serial killers, child murderers and rapists, spoke their last words on earth, while a cocktail of lethal drugs surged through their veins.

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Right to life, Death Penalty,

Presents statistics on persons under sentence of death at year-end 2016, including summary trends in the population, admissions to and releases from death row, the number of persons executed, and an advance count of executions in 2017. Data are from BJS’s National Prisoner Statistics(NPS-8 series.Highlights:- At year-end 2016, a total of 32 states and the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) held 2,814 prisoners under sentence of death, which was 58 (2%) fewer than at year-end 2015.- California (26%), Florida (14%), and Texas (9%) held nearly half (49%) of the nation’s prisoners under sentence of death at year-end 2016; in 2016, Texas executed seven prisoners, Florida executed one, and California did not execute any prisoners.- In 2016, the number of prisoners under sentence of death decreased for the sixteenth consecutive year.- Twelve states received a total of 32 prisoners under sentence of death in 2016.- Five states executed a total of 20 prisoners in 2016, with Georgia (9) and Texas (7) accounting for 80% of executions.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list United States

OTSE is a coalition of individuals and organizations working to reduce use of and ultimately end capital punishment in Ohio. The purpose of the report is to provide information and analysis to the media, members of the general public, legislators and state leaders.The death penalty in Ohio has become increasingly rare and is relegated to just a few high-use,outlier counties.Indeed, although Ohio has set an execution schedule unmatched by any state in the country up to the year 2023, it seems doubtful, based on its history of litigation and execution drug shortages, that Ohio will execute all those individuals.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Death Row Conditions, Death Penalty, Country/Regional profiles,

“Unknown Assailants: A Threat to Human Rights”So is named The Tanzania Human Rights Report of 2017 released by the Legal and Human Rights Centre (LHRC).This report was published on April, 25th 2018 and it enlights for the fifteenth time the major human rights violation in Tanzania. This report, while it deals with human rights violation in Tanzania concerning civil and politial rights, freedom of violence, freedom of expression, etc, also presents some issues due to these violations such as the right to participate in governance, particularly the right to participate in political life, which are deny.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list United Republic of Tanzania
• Themes list Death Penalty, Statistics, Country/Regional profiles,

Video “It is the potential of this documentary to move us toward a more enlightened society that excites me about this work.” Benjamin Jealous, former NAACP PresidentAs wrongful convictions, botched executions, and a broken justice system inch further into the spotlight, we must consider: What is justice? What part should the death penalty play?

• Document type Multimedia content
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Mental Illness, Innocence, Death Penalty,

In this report, SHAMS emphasizes that in Palestine they apply inconsistent legal combination of laws that punish with death penalty, which are not Palestinian laws basically.The problem is that capital punishment violates against an essential human right, and it is irreversible once executed. It doesn’t represent a public deterrent so; it is nothing but a form of violence not a solution for it.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list State of Palestine
• Themes list Death Penalty,
• Available languages مركز “شمس” يصدر تقريراً حول واقع عقوبة الإعدام في الأراضي الفلسطينية في العام 2017

Report about the treatment of Pakistanis in the Saudi criminal justice system

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list Pakistan
• Themes list Discrimination, Foreign Nationals,

Presentation of Lin Hsinyi, Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty for the Fact-finding workshop focused on the socioeconomic status of people on death row which took place during the 2017 General Assembly of the World Coalition

• Document type Multimedia content
• Countries list Taiwan
• Themes list Trend Towards Abolition, Death Row Conditions, Death Row Phenomenon, World Coalition Against the Death Penalty, Death Penalty, Statistics,

Presentation of Robert Dunham, Death Penalty Information Center, for the plenary session on the death penalty in the USA which took place during the 2017 General Assembly of the World Coalition.

• Document type Multimedia content
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Trend Towards Abolition, World Coalition Against the Death Penalty, Death Penalty, Statistics, Country/Regional profiles,

The Chinese government continues to conceal the extent to which capital punishment is being used in China, despite more than four decades of requests from UN bodies and the international community and despite the Chinese authorities’ own pledges to bring about increased openness in the country’s criminal justice system. This report focuses on the extent to which the authorities maintain near absolute secrecy over the death penalty system, while using partial and generally unverifiable disclosures to claim progress and reject demands for greater transparency.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list China
• Themes list Drug Offences, Death Penalty, Statistics, Country/Regional profiles,
• Available languages 中国的致命秘密

Không giống như ở Mỹ, nơi tràn ngập các nghiên cứu về tử hình và tác dụng răn đe của hình phạt này, có rất ít nghiên cứu về hình phạt tử hình và tác dụng răn đe của nó ở Nhật Bản. Mặc dù vậy, người dân và các quan chức nước này vẫn đưa ra những nhậnđịnh đầy tự tin đối với chủ đề này. Trên thực tế, tác dụng răn đe được xem là “điểm tranh cãi chủ chốt giữa các lập luận ủng hộ và phản đối” hình phạt tử hình ở Nhật Bản. Khó khăn trong việc thu thập các số liệu chuẩn mực về tội phạm từ Chính phủ Nhật Bản đã khiến cho việc tiến hành một nghiên cứu nghiêm túc về đề tài này gần như là bất khả thi. Bài viết này sử dụng các số liệu thống kê hàng tháng về tội phạm giết người và tộiphạm giết người cướp mà trước không thể tiếp cận được để xem xét liệu việc tuyên và thực thi án tử hình ở Nhật Bản có tác dụng ngăn chặn những tội phạm kể trên trong giai đoạn từ năm 1990 đến 2010 hay không. Và phát hiện chính của nghiên cứu này là hình phạt tử hình không có tác dụng răn đe tội phạm giết người và tội phạm cướp của giết người trong giai đoạn nói trên. Cần phải có thêm nghiên cứu về đề tài này, tuy nhiên, tại thời điểm hiện tại Chính phủ Nhật Bản không có bất cứ căn cứ chắc chắn nào để tiếp tục khẳng định nước này cần duy trì hình phạt tử hình vì hình phạt này giúp ngăn chặn tội phạm có tính đặc biệt nghiêm trọng.

• Document type Multimedia content
• Countries list Japan

At a press conference in Washington, DC, Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty released a new report that shows the surge in the number of Republican lawmakers who sponsored death penalty repeal legislation at the state level. The report – called The Right Way – looked at all death penalty repeal bills filed since 2000, using the increase in sponsorships as a measure for growing Republican leadership on the issue.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Public opinion, Public debate, Death Penalty, Country/Regional profiles,

This Ratification Kit is designed for government decision-makers. It gives the procedure to ratify or accede to the Protocol and arguments to convince target countries to endorse it. Governments are not likely to have an expert understanding of the Second Optional Protocol. This document may contain answers to government concerns that will be addressed to you during your lobbying action.

• Document type Academic report
• Countries list Morocco
• Themes list International law,
• Available languages Kit de ratificación - MarruecosKit de ratification - Maroc

Politicians champion the death penalty while they campaign and are in office, and then they retire and move on, never having to deal with the reality of it.

• Document type Academic report
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Murder Victims' Families, Death Penalty, Country/Regional profiles,

What would you do if someone you love was raped, tortured, or murdered? How would you seek justice? The very thought evokes horror— we shudder to even consider it. But it is a reality faced by Vicki and Syl Scheiber after their daughter’s rape and murder; faced by Karen Brassard in the traumatic aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing; faced by former Virginia state executioner Jerry Givens after performing 62 executions.As wrongful convictions, botched executions, and a broken justice system inch further into the spotlight, we must consider: What is justice? What part should the death penalty play?In the Executioner’s Shadow allows a glimpse into Jerry’s rarely seen world of death row and execution. It explores Karen’s moral conflict as she attends the accused bomber’s trial, a young man the same age as her son. It defies our perception of justice as Vicki and Syl fight for the life of their daughter’s murderer.In the Executioner’s Shadow illuminates the oft hidden realities entangled in death row, the death penalty, and the U.S. Justice system at large.

• Document type Multimedia content
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Public opinion, Death Penalty, Country/Regional profiles,

Cheong Chun Yin, a Malaysian boy, was about 23 years old when he was arrested for drug trafficking. A trusting boy he was asked to bring some ‘gold’ to Singapore. Merri was a victim of domestic abuse, whose son had a heart defect. She took a job abroad to help pay his hospital bills. A loving man bought her a suitcase for her home journey. The tragedy of such stories is what keeps human rights activists and lawyers from ASEAN unrelenting in their opposition to the death penalty, for reasons they spell out in this video.

• Document type Multimedia content
• Countries list Malaysia
• Themes list Arbitrariness, Networks, Country/Regional profiles,

Joint submission for the Universal Periodic Review of Pakistan in 2017.

• Document type United Nations report
• Countries list Pakistan
• Themes list Juveniles, Mental Illness, International law, Torture, Death Row Conditions, Legal Representation, Death Penalty,

Singapore has recorded a significant reduction in its use of the death penalty in recent years, with executions dropping from more than 70 per year in the mid-1990s to single figures in the subsequent decade. Despite this progress, the death penalty in the country continues to be used in violation of international law and standards, particularly with respect to its mandatory application and use for drug-related offences.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list Singapore
• Themes list Mandatory Death Penalty, Member organizations, Death Penalty,

• Document type Multimedia content
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Deterrence , Member organizations, Death Penalty,

Although,by all functional measures, Oregonians have abandoned the death penalty, 35 condemned inmates remain on Oregon’s death row.What do we know about those people, and about the quality of justice that resulted in their death sentences? This report examines the cases of the condemned men and women in Oregon to see how they ended up there, and what patterns emerged.Here’s what we found: In Oregon, two-thirds of death row inmates possess signs of serious mental illness or intellectual impairment, endured devastatingly severe childhood trauma, or were not old enough to legally purchase alcohol at the time the offense occurred.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Mental Illness, Death Row Phenomenon, Intellectual Disability, World Coalition Against the Death Penalty, Death Penalty, Country/Regional profiles,

After a presentation of the legislation regarding the death penalty in Puerto Rico, the report covers the death penalty situation in the State in 2015 (Puerto Ricans facing the death penalty in Puerto Rico and well as in U.S. states).

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list Puerto Rico
• Themes list Death Penalty, Country/Regional profiles,
• Available languages Rapport annuel Peine de Mort: le cas de Porto Rico - 2015Informe Anual Pena de Muerte: El Caso de Puerto Rico 2015

Mengemukanya rencana kejagung untuk melaksanakan hukuman mati jilid ketiga mau tak mau memunculkan pro kontranya kembali.

• Document type Multimedia content
• Countries list Indonesia
• Themes list Public opinion, Public debate, Country/Regional profiles,

The trends are clear. In 2015, juries returned the fewest number of new death sentences—49—since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.Of the 3,143 county or county equivalents in the United States, only 16—or one half of one percent—imposed five or more death sentences between 2010 and 2015.This report takes a close look at how capital punishment operates on the ground in half of these active death-sentencing counties. In Part II, we highlight Dallas (TX), Jefferson(AL), San Bernardino (CA), Los Angeles (CA), Orange (CA), Miami-Dade (FL),Hillsborough (FL), and Pinellas (FL) counties.Our review of these counties, like the places profiled in Part I, reveals thatthese counties frequently share at least three systemic deficiencies: a history ofoverzealous prosecutions, inadequate defense lawyering, and a pattern of racialbias and exclusion. These structural failings regularly produce two types of unjustoutcomes which disproportionately impact people of color: the wrongful convictionof innocent people, and the excessive punishment of persons who are young or sufferfrom severe mental illnesses, brain damage, trauma, and intellectual disabilities.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Trend Towards Abolition, Country/Regional profiles,

The trends are clear. In 2015, juries returned the fewest number of new death sentences—49—since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.Of the 3,143 county or county equivalents in the United States, only 16—or one half of one percent—imposed five or more death sentences between 2010 and 2015.This report takes a close look at how capital punishment operates on the ground in half of these active death-sentencing counties. In this first report, we dig deep into Caddo, Clark, Duval, Harris, Maricopa, Mobile, Kern, and Riverside counties. Our review reveals that these counties frequently share at least three systemic deficiencies: a history of overzealous prosecutions, inadequate defense lawyering, and a pattern of racial bias and exclusion. These structural failings regularly produce two types of unjust outcomes which disproportionately impact people of color: the wrongful conviction of innocent people, and the excessive punishment of persons who are young or suffer from severe mental illnesses, brain damage, trauma, and intellectual disabilities.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Trend Towards Abolition, Country/Regional profiles,

This project sought to answer questions regarding the socio-economic profile of prisoners sentenced to death in India while looking into the process of death sentencing in itself. By means of meaningful statistics and case studies, this report manages to enlighten some aspects of the death penalty in India which are generally not fully explored and triggers a sociological discussion on these thorny issues that goes beyond the legal analysis of Supreme Court judgments.

Chapters:
6) Experience in custody
7) Trial and appeals
8) Living on death row
9) Seeking mercy
10) Impact

Link to Volume 1: http://www.worldcoalition.org/resourcecentre/document/id/1462890615

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list India
• Themes list Discrimination, Country/Regional profiles,

This project sought to answer questions regarding the socio-economic profile of prisoners sentenced to death in India while looking into the process of death sentencing in itself. By means of meaningful statistics and case studies, this report manages to enlighten some aspects of the death penalty in India which are generally not fully explored and triggers a sociological discussion on these thorny issues that goes beyond the legal analysis of Supreme Court judgments.

Chapters:
1) Coverage of the project
2) Durations on death row
3) Nature of crimes
4) Socio-economic profile
5) Legal assistance

Link to Volume 2: http://www.worldcoalition.org/resourcecentre/document/id/1463669874

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list India
• Themes list Discrimination, Country/Regional profiles,

While execution chambers remain active in several states in the United States, constitutional regulation has contributed to the death penalty’s new fragility. In the next decade or two, Carol Steiker and Jordan Steiker argue, the fate of the American death penalty is likely to be sealed by this failed judicial experiment. Courting Death illuminates both the promise and pitfalls of constitutional regulation of contentious social issues.

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Death Penalty, Country/Regional profiles,

NKDB hosts a monthly English language briefing and discussion on North Korean human rights every month with embassy officials, NGO staff, and NKDB staff as guests

• Document type Article
• Countries list Republic of Korea
• Themes list World Coalition Against the Death Penalty, Death Penalty, Country/Regional profiles,

The permanent missions to the United Nations in New York listed below have the honour to refer to General Assembly resolution 69/186, entitled “Moratorium on the use of the death penalty”, which was adopted by the Third Committee on 21 November 2014 and subsequently by the General Assembly on 18 December 2014 by a recorded vote. The permanent missions wish to place on record that they are in persistent objection to any attempt to impose a moratorium on the use of the death penalty or its abolition in contravention of existing stipulations under international law, for the following reasons:

• Document type United Nations report
• Countries list Antigua and Barbuda / Bangladesh / Botswana / Brunei Darussalam / China / Democratic People's Republic of Korea / Egypt / Ethiopia / Guyana / Iran (Islamic Republic of) / Iraq / Jamaica / Kuwait / Libya / Malaysia / Nigeria / Oman / Pakistan / Qatar / Saudi Arabia / Singapore / Sudan / Syrian Arab Republic / Trinidad and Tobago / United Arab Emirates / Yemen / Zimbabwe
• Themes list Moratorium
• Available languages مذكرة شفوية مؤرخة 28 تموز/يوليه ٢٠١٥ موجهة إلى الأمين العام من البعثة الدائمة لمصر لدى الأمم المتحدةNota verbal de fecha 28 de julio de 2015 dirigida al Secretario General por la Misión Permanente de Egipto ante las Naciones UnidasNote verbale datée du 28 juillet 2015, adressée au Secrétaire général par la Mission permanente de l’Égypte auprès de l’Organisation des Nations UniesВербальная нота Постоянного представительства Египта при Организации Объединенных Наций от 28 июля 2015 года на имя Генерального секретаря2015年7月28日埃及常驻联合国代表团给秘书长的普通照会

According to Iranian law, the age when girls are held accountable for criminal punishment is nine years old, while international conventions have banned the death penalty for persons under 18. In Iran, the death penalty for children is used for crimes such as murder, drug trafficking, and armed robbery.Pursuant to the passing of new laws in recent years, the Iranian Judiciary System detains children in Juvenile Delinquents Correction Centers after their death sentence verdict, and a large number of them are hanged upon reaching age 18.

• Document type Academic report
• Countries list Iran (Islamic Republic of)
• Themes list Juveniles, Women, Death Row Conditions,

Meskipun protes keras dari Organisasi lokal dan hak asasi manusia internasional , pemerintah Indonesia baru di bawah Presiden Joko Widodo telah dieksekusi 14 orang , termasuk warga negara Indonesia dan asing , pada tahun 2015. Semua dari mereka telah dihukum karena perdagangan narkoba . Dalam kesempatan lain Presiden Widodo anche Lain Bahwa pemerintah publik akan menolak aplikasi apapun grasi dibuat oleh orang-orang yang dijatuhi hukuman mati untuk kejahatan narkoba . Yang laporan ini didasarkan pada pekerjaan Amnesty International selama tiga Dekade terakhir mendokumentasikan penggunaan hukuman mati di Indonesia , meliputi penelitian dilakukan selama kunjungan Maret 2015 ke negara itu . Laporan ini menyoroti 12 kasus individu tahanan hukuman mati , dari total 131 orang hukuman mati , yang mengarah ke masalah sistemik dalam administrasi Indonesia keadilan itu mengakibatkan pelanggaran hukum dan standar HAM internasional.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list Indonesia
• Themes list Fair Trial, Drug Offences, Country/Regional profiles,
• Available languages Une justice déficiente. Procès iniques et recours à la peine de mort en IndonésieFlawed Justice: Unfair Trial and the Death Penalty in indonesia

The 2015 Amnesty International’s Report on Saudi Arabia gravely confirms that Saudi Arabia remains one of the most prolific executioners in the world. Between January 1985, the earliest year from when information on executions is available, and June 2015 it executed at least 2,200 persons, almost half of whom were foreign nationals. Over one third of these executions were carried out for offences that do not meet the threshold of “most serious crimes” for which the death penalty can be imposed under international law. Most of these crimes, such as drug-related offences, are not mandatorily punishable by death according to the authorities’ interpretation of Islamic Shari’a law.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list Saudi Arabia
• Themes list Drug Offences, Foreign Nationals, Most Serious Crimes, Death Penalty,

This Ratification Kit is designed for government decision-makers. It gives the procedure to ratify or accede to the Protocol and arguments to convince target countries to endorse it. Governments are not likely to have an expert understanding of the Second Optional Protocol. This document may contain answers to government concerns that will be addressed to you during your lobbying action.

• Document type Academic report
• Countries list Sierra Leone
• Themes list International law,
• Available languages Kit de Ratificación – Sierra LeoneKit de ratification - Sierra Leone

This Ratification Kit is designed for government decision-makers. It gives the procedure to ratify or accede to the Protocol and arguments to convince target countries to endorse it. Governments are not likely to have an expert understanding of the Second Optional Protocol. This document may contain answers to government concerns that will be addressed to you during your lobbying action.

• Document type Academic report
• Countries list Dominican Republic
• Themes list International law,
• Available languages Kit de ratification - République dominicaineKit de ratificación - República Dominicana

This Ratification Kit is designed for government decision-makers. It gives the procedure to ratify or accede to the Protocol and arguments to convince target countries to endorse it. Governments are not likely to have an expert understanding of the Second Optional Protocol. This document may contain answers to government concerns that will be addressed to you during your lobbying action.

• Document type Academic report
• Countries list Madagascar
• Themes list International law,
• Available languages Kit de ratification - Madagascar

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list Pakistan
• Themes list Legal Representation, Networks, Death Penalty, Country/Regional profiles,

This report is a result of death row prisoner data from 38 prisons across Pakistan’s four provinces(Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (‘KPK ’),Punjab and Sindh. For most of Pakistan, the data runs to December 2012, thereby covering all those who are presently subject to execution dates. However, the report reflects further data on the province of Sindh running to October 2014

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list Pakistan
• Themes list Death Penalty, Country/Regional profiles,

The report highlights specific aspects of Taiwan’s domestic legal order that does not meet the minimum standards under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Taiwan passed legislation to incorporate the ICCPR into the domestic legal order in 2009, yet the current death penalty practice is largely out of line with the contemporary understanding of the ICCPR as it relates to the death penalty.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list Taiwan
• Themes list International law, Country/Regional profiles,

Il 1° novembre, nel corso della fiera Lucca Comics & Games 2014 verrà presentato Precious. La cosa più preziosa il primo gioco di ruolo sulla pena di morte, realizzato dall’Associazione Coyote Press con la collaborazione di Amnesty International Italia. La meccanica del gioco è accompagnata da un ampio saggio sul tema della pena capitale, realizzato dal Coordinamento pena di morte di Amnesty International Italia, che presenta dati e statistiche sul tema, casi per i quali si è attivata, spunti di informazione e discussione – dalla campagna contro la pena di morte ai diversi paradossi che questa porta con sé, la deterrenza, la discriminazione razziale e sociale, la negazione dei diritti. Il saggio è seguito da 10 ritratti di persone reali, coinvolte a vario titolo sul tema: condannati a morte, sostenitori della pena capitale, abolizionisti e attivisti per i diritti umani.

• Document type Article
• Countries list Italy
• Themes list Networks,

The Court (pictured) ruled in favour of two prisoners who petitioned for a commutation of their death sentences to life imprisonment, claiming “the unconscionably long delay in deciding the mercy petition has caused the onset of chronic psychotic illness”. It acknowledged the “unbearable mental agony after confirmation of death sentence” and added that in some cases “death-row prisoners lost their mental balance on account of prolonged anxiety and suffering experienced on death row”.

• Document type Multimedia content
• Countries list India
• Themes list Mental Illness, International law, Death Row Conditions, Death Row Phenomenon,

This Ratification Kit is designed for government decision-makers. It gives the procedure to ratify or accede to the Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty, and arguments to convince target countries to endorse it. Governments are not likely to have an expert understanding of the Second Optional Protocol. This document may contain answers to government concerns that will be addressed to you during your lobbying action.

• Document type Lobbying
• Countries list Haiti
• Available languages Kit de Ratificación - HaitíKit de ratification - Haiti

This Ratification Kit is designed for government decision-makers. It gives the procedure to ratify or accede to the Protocol and arguments to convince target countries to endorse it. Governments are not likely to have an expert understanding of the Second Optional Protocol. This document may contain answers to government concerns that will be addressed to you during your lobbying action.

• Document type Academic report
• Countries list Togo
• Themes list International law,
• Available languages Kit de ratification - Togo

Drawing on primary research, this book explores the cultural life of the death penalty in Britain in the twentieth century, including an exploration of the role of the popular press and a discussion of portrayals of the death penalty in plays, novels and films. Popular protest against capital punishment and public responses to and understandings of capital cases are also discussed, particularly in relation to conceptualisations of justice.

• Document type Book
• Countries list United Kingdom
• Themes list Trend Towards Abolition, Death Penalty, Country/Regional profiles,

In striking down the death penalty for intellectually disabled and juvenile defendants, Atkins v. Virginia and Roper v. Simmons have been understandably heralded as important holdings under the Court’s Eighth Amendment jurisprudence that has found the death penalty “disproportional” for certain types of defendants and crimes. This Article argues, however, that the cases have a far more revolutionary reach than their conventional understanding. In both cases the Court went one step beyond its usual two-step analysis of assessing whether imposing the death penalty violated “evolving standards of decency.” This extra step looked at why even though intellectual disability and youth were powerful mitigators, juries were not able to reliably use them in their decision making. The Court thus articulated expressly for the first time what this Article calls the “unreliability principle:” if too great a risk exists that constitutionally protected mitigation cannot be reliably assessed, the unreliability means that the death penalty cannot be constitutionally imposed. In recognizing the unreliability principle, the Court has called into serious question the death penalty for other offenders to whom the principle applies, such as mentally ill defendants. And, unlike with the “evolving standards” analysis, the unreliability principle does not depend on whether a national consensus exists against the practice. This Article identifies the six Atkins-Roper factors that bring the unreliability principle into play and shows why they make application of the death penalty to mentally ill defendants unconstitutional. The principle, which finds its constitutional home in the cases of Woodson v. North Carolina and Lockett v. Ohio, has profound implications for the death penalty, and if taken to its logical endpoint calls into question the Court’s core premise since Furman v. Georgia, that by providing individualized consideration of a defendant and his crime, the death penalty decision will be free of arbitrariness.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Fair Trial, Intellectual Disability,

The article, with three co-authors, examines empirically the capital cases decided by the lower courts since the United States Supreme Court created the categorical ban against the execution of persons with intellectual disability twelve years ago in the Atkins decision.

• Document type Article
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Mental Illness,

The permanent missions to the United Nations in New York listed below have the honour to refer to General Assembly resolution 67/176, entitled “Moratorium on the use of the death penalty”, which was adopted by the Third Committee on 19 November 2012, and subsequently by the General Assembly on 20 December 2012 by a recorded vote. The permanent missions wish to place on record that they are in persistent objection to any attempt to impose a moratorium on the use of the death penalty or its abolition in contravention of existing stipulations under international law, for the following reasons:

• Document type United Nations report
• Countries list Afghanistan / Antigua and Barbuda / Bahrain / Bangladesh / Barbados / Botswana / Brunei Darussalam / Chad / China / Democratic People's Republic of Korea / Egypt / Equatorial Guinea / Eritrea / Eswatini / Ethiopia / Grenada / Guyana / India / Iran (Islamic Republic of) / Iraq / Jamaica / Kuwait / Lao People's Democratic Republic / Libya / Malaysia / Mauritania / Myanmar / Nigeria / Oman / Pakistan / Papua New Guinea / Qatar / Saint Kitts and Nevis / Saint Lucia / Saint Vincent and the Grenadines / Saudi Arabia / Singapore / Solomon Islands / Somalia / Sudan / Syrian Arab Republic / Tonga / Trinidad and Tobago / Uganda / United Arab Emirates / Yemen / Zimbabwe
• Themes list Moratorium
• Available languages مذكرة شفوية مؤرخة 16 نيسان/أبريل 2013 موجهة إلى الأمين العام من البعثة الدائمة لمصر لدى الأمم المتحدةNota verbal de fecha 16 de abril de 2013 dirigida al Secretario General por la Misión Permanente de Egipto ante las Naciones UnidasNote verbale datée du 16 avril 2013, adressée au Secrétaire général par la Mission permanente de l’Égypte auprès de l’Organisation des Nations UniesВербальная нота Постоянного представительства Египта при Организации Объединенных Наций от 16 апреля 2013 года на имя Генерального секретаря2013年4月16日埃及常驻联合国代表团给秘书长的普通照会

In the 2002 landmark decision Atkins v. Virginia 536 U.S. 304, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that executing a person with intellectual disability is a violation of the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits “cruel and unusual punishment,” but left states to determine their own criteria for intellectual disability. AAIDD has always advocated against the death penalty for people with intellectual disability and has long provided amicus curiae briefs in Supreme Court cases. Thus, in this comprehensive new book published by AAIDD, notable authors in the field of intellectual disability discuss all aspects of the issues, with a particular focus on foundational considerations, assessment factors and issues, and professional concerns in Atkins assessments.

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Mental Illness, Intellectual Disability,

This report was commissioned by the Death Penalty Project in order to assess Japan’s legal obligations on the use of the death penalty under the ICCPR, and to examine the related subject of public attitudes toward capital punishment in Japan.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list Japan
• Themes list International law, Public opinion,

Анімацыйная стужка, створаная таленавітымі валанцёрамі кампаніі “Праваабаронцы супраць смяротнага пакарання” раскрывае тэму незваротнасці і жорсткасці смяротнага прысуду. Беларусь — апошняя краіна ў Еўропе і на постсавецкай прасторы, якая выкарыстоўвае смяротнае пакаранне.

• Document type Academic report
• Countries list Belarus
• Themes list International law, Public opinion,

Бурное социально-экономическое развитие КНР в последние годы обусловило изменения, произошедшие в современном китайском обществе, что, в свою очередь, повлекло необходи- мость изменения уголовного законодательства Китая.

• Document type Article
• Countries list China
• Themes list International law,

The change of administration in the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and taking of office by a new president on 3 August 2013 has not brought any change as far as the death penalty is concerned. Between the 14 June presidential election and 1st October, more than 200 people have been reportedly executed, including possibly three people who may have been younger than 18 at the time of the commission of the alleged crimes.Against this backdrop, FIDH and its member organisation, LDDHI, have decided topublish the present report to analyse the new penal laws in force in Iran that are invoked consistently to violate the right to life in general and to execute child offenders. Coinciding with 10 October 2013, World Day against the Death Penalty, this report aimsto serve as an update on the current state of application of the death penalty in the IRI.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list Iran (Islamic Republic of)
• Themes list Juveniles, Drug Offences, Hanging, Country/Regional profiles,
• Available languages مجازﺯاﺍتﺕ اﺍعداﺍمﻡ دﺩرﺭ اﺍﯾﻳراﺍنﻥ - سﯿﻴاست دﺩوﻭلتﯽﻲ اﺍﯾﻳجادﺩ وﻭحشت - وﻭﯾﻳژهﻩ ﯾﻳازﺯدﺩهمﯿﻴن رﺭوﻭزﺯ جهانﯽﻲ ضد مجازﺯاﺍتﺕ اﺍعداﺍمﻡ

For the 2013 World Day, the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty is asking Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago to abolish the mandatory death penalty for all crimes.

• Document type Academic report
• Countries list Barbados
• Themes list Mandatory Death Penalty, Country/Regional profiles,
• Available languages Pétition - Barbade et Trinité-et-Tobago

A death penalty abolitionist (Martina Correia) must sound the alarms of our criminal justice system in time to save her brother from lethal injection.

• Document type Academic report
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Innocence,

The animation film, created by talented volunteers of the campaign “Human Rights Defenders against Death Penalty”, dwells on the topic of the cruelty and inhumanity of the death penalty in Belarus. Our country is the last one in Europe and on the post-Soviet space where the death penalty is still used

• Document type Academic report
• Countries list Belarus
• Themes list International law, Public debate,

Short video of Darryl Stallworth, a former California Deputy DA who once sought the death penalty as a prosecutor — and now wants to replace the death penalty with life without parole. Darryl believes Prop. 34 is right step for California, and I wanted to share his story with you, too

• Document type Academic report
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Public debate, Trend Towards Abolition,

Delia Perez-Meyer, an elementary school teacher, has taken a weeklyjourney from the classroom to death row for the past 12 years. She tells of her personal voyage, beginning from a place of frustration to acceptanceand hopeful activism.

• Document type Academic report
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Women, Innocence,

Art and letters from the men who await death in the Union Correctional Institution in Raiford, Florida

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment and Punishment, Death Row Conditions, Country/Regional profiles,

This book is a first-hand account of the life of Simon City Royals gangster Robert “Saint” Bailey who is currently on Death Row in Raiford, Florida. He killed a law enforcement officer in 2005.

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Innocence, Country/Regional profiles,

For the past seven years, Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh have quietly financed investigations to help free Jason Baldwin, Jesse Misskelley Jr., and Damien Echols, known as the the West Memphis Three, who were wrongly convicted in 1994 of murdering three 8-year-old boys in West Memphis , Arkansas. This piece provides and in-depth look into Peter and Fran’s involvement with the investigattion, the creation of ‘West of Memphis’ as a way to expose key developments in the infamous murder case and Jackson’s main goal, to exonerate the West Memphis Three and help find the real killer.

• Document type Academic report
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Innocence,

なぜ韓国は15年間死刑執行がないのか。事実上の死刑廃止国・韓国から学ぶ。

• Document type Book
• Countries list Republic of Korea
• Themes list Country/Regional profiles,

For 15 years there have been no executions in South Korea. The film focuses mainly on South Korea through the stories of those directly affected by the death penalty and others outside the country who argue the case for abolition from the perspective of victims’ families, Renny Cushing, Murder Victims Families for Human Rights. It includes testimony from those sentenced to death, a prison warden, the former President of South Korea, Kim Dae Jung, a former prisoner of conscience who was himself sentenced to death and who introduced a moratorium during his presidency. No executions have taken place in South Korea since former President Kim Dae Jung announced his decision. In September South Korea celebrated 5,000 days with no executions.

• Document type Academic report
• Countries list Republic of Korea
• Themes list Country/Regional profiles,

Olatunji Olaide was wrongfully arrested and subsequently sentenced to death. He shares the harrowing experience of his time in prison and his survival and freedom with BN and how he kept his head high in the face of the storm.We hope that you are inspired by it.

• Document type Article
• Countries list Nigeria
• Themes list Innocence,

Is the Troy Davis case the tipping point on the capital punishment debate? Unfortunately, not until the majority of Americans believes that killing—even an unquestionably guilty murderer—is wrong.

• Document type Academic report
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Innocence,

Two trends accompanying the abolition of the death penalty give reason for concern: there is a striking increase in offences that carry the sanction of life imprisonment as the sanction which typically replaces the death penalty following abolition or a moratorium of the death penalty; and a striking increase in prisoners serving this indefinite sentence. Secondly, a differential, harsher treatment is applied to them as compared to other categories of prisoners. At the same time, the development of international standards in any affirmative–if not legally binding– form are lacking. As a consequence states are more frequently enforcing a form of punishment problematic in terms of international human rights standards and norms.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list Kenya
• Themes list Trend Towards Abolition,

As part of Amnesty International’s 2012 death penalty campaign the Guardian and animators from Sherbet tell in this short animation fim the extraordinary story of Mohammad Mostafaei, a lawyer who has saved 20 of the 40 juveniles he has defended from execution in Iran. Actor Paul Bettany speaks the lawyer’s words.

• Document type Academic report
• Countries list Iran (Islamic Republic of)
• Themes list Innocence,

MVFHR is an organization formed by a group of victim’s family members. They have traveled across the ocean all the way down to Korea, Japan, and Taiwan to share their stories and views on the death penalty with the local victim’s family members, attorneys, and human rights organizations.

• Document type Academic report
• Countries list Japan
• Themes list Murder Victims' Families,
• Available languages MVFHR 飄洋過海來看你：看見被害人 20100704 台北信義誠品

Norman Mailer tells Gary Gilmore’s story, and those of the men and women caught up in his procession toward the firing squad, with implacable authority, steely compassion, and a restraint that evokes the parched landscapes and stern theology of Gilmore’s Utah.

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Networks,

The release of Sierra Leone’s longest serving female death row prisoner.

• Document type Academic report
• Countries list Sierra Leone
• Themes list Innocence,

This article presents a legal and political analysis of the 2003 – 2005 effort of Governor Mitt Romney to make the death penalty available as a sentencing option in Massachusetts.

• Document type Article
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Public debate,

As Texas prepares to execute one of his father’s killers, Ross Byrd hopes the state shows the man the mercy his father, James Byrd Jr., never got when he was dragged behind a truck to his

• Document type Academic report
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Murder Victims' Families,

The report covers the period from January to December 2010, though some key events in early 2011 have also been included. It highlights the important progressbeing made, serious concerns that we have, and what we are doing to promote our values around the world. It will rightly be studied closely by Parliament, NGOs and the wider public. There is a chapter dedicated to the death penalty, as well as 2010 figures on the death penalty in target countries.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list Afghanistan
• Themes list Networks,

This article reviews several cases where the families of victim’s speak out against the death penalty.

• Document type Academic report
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Murder Victims' Families,

This Article uncovers the true costs of administering the death penalty in California by tracing how much taxpayers are spending for death penalty trials versus non–death penalty trials and for costs incurred due to the delay from the initial sentence of death to the execution.The article makes recomendations.

• Document type Article
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Sentencing Alternatives, Financial cost,

This Article identifies the woeful inefficiencies of the current procedures that have led to inexcusable delays in arriving at just results in death penalty cases and describes how California came to find itself in this untenable condition. The article makes recomendations.

• Document type Article
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Fair Trial,

Immigrant badly wounded by ‘Arab Slayer’ mounts long-shot bid to halt execution.

• Document type Academic report
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Retribution, Murder Victims' Families,

The permanent missions to the United Nations in New York listed below have the honour to refer to General Assembly resolution 65/206, entitled “Moratorium on the use of the death penalty”, which was adopted by the Third Committee on 11 November 2010, and subsequently by the General Assembly on 21 December 2010 by a recorded vote. The permanent missions wish to place on record that they are in persistent objection to any attempt to impose a moratorium on the use of the death penalty or its abolition in contravention of existing stipulations under international law, for the following reasons:

• Document type United Nations report
• Countries list Afghanistan / Antigua and Barbuda / Bahamas / Bahrain / Bangladesh / Barbados / Botswana / Brunei Darussalam / Central African Republic / Chad / China / Democratic People's Republic of Korea / Democratic Republic of the Congo / Dominica / Egypt / Equatorial Guinea / Eritrea / Eswatini / Ethiopia / Grenada / Guinea / Guyana / Indonesia / Iran (Islamic Republic of) / Iraq / Jamaica / Kuwait / Lao People's Democratic Republic / Libya / Malaysia / Myanmar / Niger / Nigeria / Oman / Pakistan / Papua New Guinea / Qatar / Saint Kitts and Nevis / Saint Lucia / Saint Vincent and the Grenadines / Saudi Arabia / Sierra Leone / Singapore / Solomon Islands / Somalia / Sudan / Syrian Arab Republic / Tonga / Trinidad and Tobago / Uganda / United Arab Emirates / Yemen / Zimbabwe
• Themes list Moratorium
• Available languages مذكرة شفوية مؤرخة 11 آذار/مارس 2011 موجَّهة إلى الأمين العام من البعثة الدائمة لمصر لدى الأمم المتحدةNota verbal de fecha 11 de marzo de 2011 dirigida al Secretario General por la Misión Permanente de Egipto ante las Naciones UnidasNote verbale datée du 11 mars 2011, adressée au Secrétaire général par la Mission permanente de l’Égypte auprès de l’Organisation des Nations UniesВербальная нота Постоянного представительства Египта при Организации Объединенных Наций от 11 марта 2011 года на имя Генерального секретаря2011年3月11日埃及常驻联合国代表团给秘书长的普通照会

Reportagem de Fabian Biasio sobre a execução de um assassino esquizofrênico no Texas. Em 2003, o fotógrafo acompanhou Tina Morris durante a semana que precedia a execução do seu irmão, James Colburn.

• Document type Academic report
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Murder Victims' Families, Death Row Conditions,

Elmer G. “Geronimo” Pratt, a former Los Angeles Black Panther Party leader whose 1972 murder conviction was overturned after he spent 27 years in prison for a crime he said he did not commit, has died. He was 63.

• Document type Academic report
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Innocence,

This Ratification Kit is designed for government decision-makers. It gives the procedure to ratify or accede to the Protocol and arguments to convince target countries to endorse it. Governments are not likely to have an expert understanding of the Second Optional Protocol. This document may contain answers to government concerns that will be addressed to you during your lobbying action.

• Document type Academic report
• Countries list Cambodia
• Themes list International law,
• Available languages Kit de ratification - CambodgeKit de ratificación - Camboya

To date, Kenya and Uganda have not signed the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and are not party to any international or regional treaty prohibiting the death penalty. While Kenya abstained from voting in the 2010 UN General Assembly moratorium resolution, Uganda voted against it and signed the note verbale of issociation.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list Kenya
• Themes list Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment and Punishment, Discrimination, Country/Regional profiles,

The use of the death penalty is frequent in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. In 2009, the government reduced the number of offences punishable by death from 29 to 22. Capital punishment is applied for crimes including murder, armed robbery, drug trafficking, rape, sexual abuse of children, and a range of economic crimes. Execution is by firing squad. A draft law was introduced in November 2009 proposing the use of two methods of execution, either by firing squad or by lethal injection. Statistics on the number of death sentences and executions are not made public. Indeed, following criticisms by international human rights organisations, in January 2004, Vietnam adopted a decree classifying death penalty statistics as “state secrets”. According to the Vietnamese and international press, at least 100 people are executed each year in Vietnam. In 2007, 104 death sentences were pronounced, including 14 women. In 2010, the official legal magazine Phap Luat (Law) reported 11 death sentences for the month of January alone.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list Viet Nam
• Themes list Death Row Conditions, Firing Squad,

The use of the death penalty is frequent in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV). Capital punishment is applied for 22 offences, including murder, armed robbery, drug trafficking, rape, sexual abuse of children, and a range of economic crimes, such as graft and corruption, fraud and embezzlement (for 500 million dong – $33,200 – or more of state property), illegal production and trade of food, foodstuffs and medicines. Seven political acts perceived as “threats against national security” carry the death penalty as a maximum sentence. Capital punishment is most often used to sanction drug-related offences, followed by corruption, black-market and violent crimes. Vietnam has some of the harshest drug laws in the world. A 1997 law made possession or smuggling of 100g or more of heroin, or 5 kilograms or more of opium, punishable by death. In 2001, 55 sentences were pronounced for drug trafficking alone.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list Viet Nam
• Themes list Firing Squad, Country/Regional profiles,

This report covers the various aspects of the topic including: domestic laws, international legal framework, execution of juvenile offenders, religious and ethnic minorities, and methods of execution. According to the report, there are over 20 main categories of offences, some of them with several sub-categories, in the IRI, which are punishable by the death penalty. The majority of those “offences” are certainly not among “the most serious crimes.” Some others should not be considered as “offences” at all. In conclusion, FIDH issued a wide set of recommendations to the IRI and the international community. Among others, it recommended the adoption of an immediate moratorium on executions in light of the serious shortcomings of the guarantees of due process and fair trial.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list Iran (Islamic Republic of)
• Themes list Minorities, Country/Regional profiles,
• Available languages ایران: مجازات اعدام سیاست دولتی ایجاد وحشت ـ ویژه نامه برای کنگره ی جهانی ضد مجازات اعدام

Danthong Breen, from the NGO Union for Liberty, based in Thailande, explains why the death penalty is torture.

• Document type Academic report
• Countries list Thailand
• Themes list Torture,
• Available languages Danthong Breen - Union pour les libertés

This paper updates The Death Penalty in the OSCE Area: Background Paper 2009.It is intended to provide a concise update to highlight changes in the status of thedeath penalty in OSCE participating States since the previous publication and topromote constructive discussion of this issue. It covers the period from 1 July 2009to 30 June 2010. —– To find past OSCE papers please visit: http://www.osce.org/documents?keys=The+Death+Penalty+in+the+OSCE+Area+-+Background+Paper+

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list Albania
• Themes list Trend Towards Abolition,
• Available languages Смертная казнь в регионе ОБСЕ. Справочный документ за 2010 г.