NGO report

Between Retention and Abolition: Making Sense of a Death Penalty Without Executions

By The Death Penalty Project, on 27 November 2025


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This report marks the 40th anniversary of the adoption of the ‘abolitionist de facto’ (ADF) category in the UN’s quinquennial reports on the death penalty. Today, 42 states fall under the category of ADF – countries where no executions have taken place for at least a decade, but where the death penalty remains in law. Though an absence of executions must be commended, many ADF states still impose death sentences and, ultimately, sustain the legal infrastructure of capital punishment, with all the risks and harms this entails.

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