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On 10 October 2022, the World Coalition and abolitionists around the world celebrated the 20th World Day Against the Death Penalty (‘World Day’). Every year on World Day, the World Coalition highlights one problematic aspect of the Death Penalty.

• Document type Campaigning / World Coalition
• Available languages Rapport journée mondiale 2022

Published on April 8, 2024.

As the Constitutional Court of the Republic of China considers a challenge to the constitutionality of the death penalty, Amnesty International Taiwan and the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty submitted a joint amicus curiae intervention, to ensure the protection of the rights of all those under sentence of death. The amicus interveners argue that the use of the death penalty in the Republic of China constitutes a violation of human rights as guaranteed under the Constitution and international law and standards; and sets the country against the global trend, which remains overwhelmingly in favour of abolition.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list Taiwan
• Available languages 憲法法庭法庭之友意見書 主案案號：111年度憲民字第904052號 法庭之友：國際特赦組織台灣分會 均詳委任狀 代 表 人：林綉娟 理事長 代 理 人：陳瑋珊 律師 均詳委任狀 均詳委任狀

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

This document has been compiled by the Secretariat of the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty with substantial aid from member organizations, including Abdorrahman Boroumand Center, Amnesty International, Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide, Free Mumia ! French Support Group (Collectif français “Libérons Mumia !”), German Coalition Against the Death Penalty, Justice Project Pakistan, […]

• Document type Campaigning / World Coalition
• Available languages TEMOIGNAGES - 21ème Journée mondiale contre la peine de mort

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 mainstream legal community, including the ABA, has long understood the importance of system-building, but the revised Guidelines state the point especially forcefully. In articulating “the current consensus about what is required to provide effective defense representation in capital cases,” they set high performance standards not just for lawyers, but for death penalty jurisdictions. As the problems are systemic, it is “imperative” that the solutions be.The Guidelines accordingly not only call on governments to deliver capital defense resources that are sufficient in amount, but also furnish the states with a user-friendly blueprint for using those resources wisely to create structures that will function well in the present and evolve effectively over time. This mandate for institution-building is welcome, and the states should lead it. Indeed, they must do so if the Guidelines are to achieve their ameliorative purposes and avoid becoming just a collection of lofty aspirations “‘that palter with us in a double sense, that keep the word of promise to our ear, and break it to our hope”.

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

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

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

Detailed Factsheet 2019

• Document type Campaigning
• Themes list Trend Towards Abolition
• Available languages Fiche détaillée 2011

• Document type World Coalition
• Themes list Trend Towards Abolition
• Available languages Plan Stratégique 2023-2027 de la Coalition Mondiale

The report Sentenced to Death Without Execution, Why capital punishment has not yet been abolished in the Eastern Caribbean and Barbados, was published on 7 April 2020. It presents the views of opinion formers and was written by Roger Hood and Florence Seemungal with the assistance of Amaya Athill.Six independent 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 Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) – and Barbados, retain the death penalty for murder. Most of these countries have not executed anyone sentenced to death for at least ten years with the vast majority not carrying out an execution for more than twenty years.This independent empirical study, which presents the views of 100 ‘opinion formers’, drawn from the seven jurisdictions, aims to shed light on why these countries hang on to capital punishment and what are the barriers to the complete abolition of the death penalty in these nations. The respondents were asked about their knowledge of the use of capital punishment in their respective countries and the extent to which, and why, they either supported the policy of retaining the death penalty or were in favour of its abolition, as well as the factors, beliefs, and assumptions that appeared to account for their government’s unwillingness to embrace complete abolition.Key findings include:- Across these seven nations, 48 of the interviewees favoured retention of the death penalty (18 of them strongly) and 52 were in favour of its abolition (30 of them strongly) Of those who favoured retention of the death penalty, only a minority were committed to retaining it: only 10 of 48 interviewees said they would ‘strongly oppose an Act of Parliament to completely abolish the death penalty by definitely voting against it’. Respondents believed the best strategies to persuade their respective governments to embrace reform were: ‘through creating an influential civil society pressure group ‘Citizens Against the Death Penalty’; by ‘mounting a legal challenge to the constitutionality of the death penalty’; or by ‘persuading the government to establish a high-level commission to report on the subject’.

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Legal Representation, Mandatory Death Penalty,

This manual is a resource for those who deliver training and workshops on human rights in prisons. It explores the fundamentals of good prison management, focusing specifically on international standards for the treatment of prisoners and the special needs of vulnerable categories of prisoner.

• Document type Working with...
• Themes list Networks,
• Available languages حقوق بشر و زندانیها اسیب پزیرManuel de formation n°1 Droits humains et détenus vulnérablesManual de Capacitación No. 1 Derechos Humanos y Prisioneros Vulnerables

A recent article in Mother Jones examines lingering questions in the determination of which inmates are exempt from execution because of mental incompetency. In 1986, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Ford v. Wainwright that a person could not be executed if he or she was “unaware of the punishment they’re about to suffer and why they are to suffer it.” The 2007 ruling in Panetti v. Quarterman updated that decision, with Justice Anthony Kennedy writing, “A prisoner’s awareness of the State’s rationale for an execution is not the same as a rational understanding of it.” Scott Panetti (pictured), the inmate involved in the 2007 case, knew that the state of Texas planned to execute him for the murder of his in-laws, but also sincerely believed that he was at the center of a struggle between God and Satan and was being executed to stop him from preaching the Gospel.

• Document type Article
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Intellectual Disability,

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

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 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

Intiatives World Day 2005

• Document type Campaigning
• Themes list Trend Towards Abolition
• Available languages Initiatives journée mondiale 2005

Initiatives World Day 2006

• Document type Campaigning
• Themes list Trend Towards Abolition
• Available languages Initiatives journée mondiale 2006

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

The FIACAT and ACAT Liberia organized an awareness-raisingworkshop on 17 and 18 September 2019 in Monrovia (Liberia) for 30 participants: Muslim and Christian religious leaders, traditional chiefs, members of civil society organizations, journalists, members of the Independent National Commissionon Human Rights (INCHR) and parliamentarians. This workshop resulted in the production of this publication to raise awareness among opinion leaders on the abolition of the death penalty in Liberia, considering the specific characteristicsand needs of the country.

• Document type Arguments against the death penalty

To date, 12 African countries have abolished the death penalty for all crimes;
20 retain the death penalty but are no longer carrying out executions; and 21 retain and use
the death penalty. The World Coalition against the death penalty has decided to devote the
World Day 2005 to a campaign to encourage all African countries to abolish capital
punishment permanently.

• Document type Campaigning
• Themes list Trend Towards Abolition
• Available languages Affiche journée mondiale 2005

• Document type World Coalition
• Themes list Trend Towards Abolition
• Available languages Impact du Plan stratégique 2018-2022 de la Coalition Mondiale

Despite a steady increase worldwide in the number of states that have abolished the death penalty, capital punishment remains a troubling presence in the international order. The world’s leading powers in terms of economics and population include the retentionist states of China, India, Japan and the United States of America (USA). It seems there is no linear path to abolition, and its achievement is indeterminate. Yet, in international human rights law, death penalty abolition is a powerful norm embraced by half the countries across the world. While the majority of death penalty research has emanated from and focuses on the USA, well over 90 per cent of global executions occur in Asia, which lags behind the global trend towards abolishing the death penalty. Our symposium and this collection seek to bring perspectives from a variety of disciplines and methods—historical, legal, sociological, comparative— to bear on the questions of retention and abolition in a variety of jurisdictions and time periods.
This article was first published in Crime Justice Journal: https://www.crimejusticejournal.com/issue/view/119

• Document type Academic report

Two-thirds of the countries worldwide have moved away from the death penalty in law or in practice, with global and regional organisations as well as individual governments working towards universal abolition. This article critically examines the narratives of these abolitionist governments that have abolished the death penalty in their country and have adopted the role of ‘moral crusaders’ (Becker 1963) in pursuit of global abolition. In 2018, the Australian Government, while being surrounded by retentionist states in Asia, joined the anti–death penalty enterprise along with the European Union, the United Kingdom and Norway. Using the concepts of ‘moral crusader’ (Becker 1963) and ‘performativity’ (Butler 1993), this article argues that advocacy must be acted on repeatedly for governments to be anti–death penalty advocates. Otherwise, these government efforts serve political ends in appearance but are simply a self-serving form of advocacy in practice.
This article was first published in Crime Justice Journal: https://www.crimejusticejournal.com/issue/view/119

• Document type Academic report

ICDP announces the launch of its latest report: Children, Youth and the Death Penalty. The issue of how the death penalty affects children and youth is often ignored by policy makers. This report aims to change that by putting the protection of children’s rights at the center of the debate on the death penalty.

The report builds on the panel discussion titled “Youth and the Death Penalty,” which was organized by the International Commission against the Death Penalty (ICDP) and the Government of Australia. The discussion was held on 29 June 2022, at the sidelines of the 50th session of the UN Human Rights Council, in Geneva.

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Juveniles

• Document type Campaigning / World Coalition
• Available languages La théorie de la dissuasion démystifiée

Detailed Factsheet 2010

• Document type Campaigning
• Themes list Trend Towards Abolition
• Available languages Fiche détaillée 2010

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 present report is submitted pursuant to Human Rights Council resolutions 26/2 and 42/24. It provides a summary of the high-level panel discussion on the question of the death penalty held on 23 February 2021 at the forty-sixth session of the Council. The panel discussion addressed the human rights violations related to the use of the death penalty, in particular with respect to whether the use of the death penalty has a deterrent effect on crime rates.

• Document type United Nations report
• Themes list Public Opinion 
• Available languages حلقة نقاش رف عة المستوى بشأن مسألة عقوبة الإعدامInforme de la OACDH 2021 sobre el efecto disuasorio : Mesa redonda de alto nivel sobre la cuestión de la pena de muerteRapport HCDH 2021 sur l'effet dissuasif : Réunion-débat de haut niveau sur la question de la peine de mortОбсуждение в рамках дискуссионной группы высокого уровня вопроса о смертной казни,способствует ли ее применение сдерживанию преступности2021年联合国威慑效应报告 - 关于死刑问题的高级别专题小组讨论会

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

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

There are several ways in which individuals and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) can work with the UN to report human rights violations. One way is through the special procedures of the UN Human Rights Council (HRC). Find out how to work with them here.

• Document type World Coalition
• Available languages Travailler avec les Procédures spéciales des Nations unies - Journée mondiale 2022

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

On 10 October 2021, the World Coalition and abolitionists around the world celebrated the 19th World Day Against the Death Penalty (‘World Day’). Every year on World Day, the World Coalition highlights one problematic aspect of the Death Penalty. In 2021, the World Day explored the theme “Women sentenced to death, an invisible reality” to raise awareness on how the treatment of gender and gender-based inequalities create particularly precarious conditions for women sentenced to capital punishment. This report presents the activities organised for the 19th World Day and the media coverage it received.

• Document type World Coalition
• Themes list Women
• Available languages Rapport journée mondiale 2021

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

This tip sheet provides some guidelines for mental health professionals who may encounter or work with children and families related to individuals who have been sentenced to death or executed.

• Document type Working with...
• Themes list Juveniles

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 

In January 2024, Ohio lawmakers announced plans to expand the use of the death penalty to permit executions with nitrogen gas, as Alabama had just done a week earlier. But at the same time the Attorney General and the Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association are championing this legislation, a bipartisan group of state legislators has introduced a bill to abolish the death penalty based on “significant concerns on who is sentenced to death and how that sentence is carried out.” The competing narratives make it more important than ever for Ohioans to have a meaningful, accurate understanding of how capital punishment is being used, including whether the state has progressed beyond the mistakes of its past.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Fair Trial / Innocence / Trend Towards Abolition

Leaflet for the 20th World Day against the death penalty (2022), on torture and the death penalty.

• Document type World Coalition
• Available languages للیوم العالمي لمناھضة عقوبة الإعدام كتيب باللغة العربيةBrochure - Journée mondiale 2022

Facts and Figures 2007

• Document type Campaigning
• Themes list Trend Towards Abolition
• Available languages Faits et chiffres 2007

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

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

There are several ways in which individuals and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) can work with the UN to report human rights violations. One way is through the special procedures of the UN Human Rights Council (HRC). Find out how to work with them here.

• Document type World Coalition
• Available languages Travailler avec les Procédures spéciales des Nations unies - Journée mondiale 2023

Leaflet Lobbying

• Document type Campaigning
• Themes list Trend Towards Abolition
• Available languages Brochure Lobbying 2007

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

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 

Summary

In its resolution 1745 (LIV) of 16 May 1973, the Economic and Social Council invited the Secretary-General to submit to it, at five-year intervals starting from 1975, periodic updated and analytical reports on capital punishment. The Council, in its resolution 1995/57 of 28 July 1995, recommended that the quinquennial reports of the Secretary-General continue to cover also the implementation of the safeguards guaranteeing protection of the rights of those facing the death penalty.

In the same resolution, the Council requested the Secretary-General, in preparing the quinquennial report, to draw on all available data, including current criminological research. The present report, which is the tenth quinquennial report, contains a review of the use of and trends in capital punishment, including the implementa tion of the safeguards during the period 2014–2018.

In accordance with resolutions 1745 (LIV) and 1990/51, of 24 July 1990, of the Economic and Social Council, as well as its decision 2005/247 of 22 July 2005, the present report is submitted to the Council at its substantive session of 2020, and will also be before the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice at its twenty-ninth session and the Human Rights Council at its forty-fourth regular session.

The report on the 2014–2018 quinquennium confirms the trend documented in previous reports towards abolition and restriction of the use of capital punishment in most countries. The number of States that have abolished the death penalty in law and in practice continued to grow. This is reflected in the increased number of States bound by treaty obligations not to implement the death penalty. The quinquennium also witnessed some years of dramatic increases in the number of executions, which were carried out by a small number of States. The situation stabilized at the end of the survey period, and the number of recorded executions in the final year, 2018, was the lowest in many years. The safeguards guaranteeing the protection of the rights of those facing the death penalty apply to States that retain capital punishment. It is of concern, however, that the death penalty continued to be imposed on persons below 18 years of age at the time of commission of the offence, and that death sentences were imposed in cases where the “most serious crimes” standard was not met and in cases of trials that did not comply with international standards.

• Document type United Nations report
• Available languages عقوبة اإلعدام وتنفيذ الضمانات التي تكفل حماية حقوق من يواجهون عقوبة اإلعدامLa pena capital y la aplicación de las salvaguardias para garantizar la protección de los derechos de las personas condenadas a la pena de muertePeine capitale et application des garanties pour la protection des droits des personnes passibles de la peine de mortСмертная казнь и применение мер, гарантирующих защиту прав тех, кому грозит смертная казнь死刑和保护死刑犯权利的保障措施的执行情况

Every 10th October, the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty and abolitionist actors worldwide celebrate the World Day Against the Death Penalty. It is an occasion to highlight the progress achieved in the global campaign for the abolition of capital punishment. In 2024 and 2025, the World Day will serve as an opportunity to challenge […]

• Document type Campaigning / World Coalition
• Available languages Brochure - Journée mondiale 2024 & 2025

Published in December 2023.

This paper reflects on the role of international human rights treaties in promoting universal abolition and progressive restriction of the death penalty. It suggests that over the past quarter of a century a ‘new human rights dynamic’ has aimed to generate universal acceptance that however it is administered, the death penalty violates the human rights of all citizens exposed to it. Nevertheless, defences of capital punishment based on principles of national sovereignty are engrained in some parts of the world, particularly in Asia and the Middle East. The human rights project struggles to make inroads into such jurisdictions where political will is opposed to abolition, and trenchant protection of sovereignty threatens the very universality of these rights.

• Document type Academic Article
• Themes list Trend Towards Abolition

Facts and Figures 2011

• Document type Campaigning
• Themes list Trend Towards Abolition
• Available languages Faits et chiffres 2011

Facts and Figures 2010

• Document type Campaigning
• Themes list Trend Towards Abolition
• Available languages Faits et chiffres 2010

Facts and Figures 2009

• Document type Campaigning
• Themes list Trend Towards Abolition
• Available languages Faits et chiffres 2009

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

Since December 2007, seven resolutions in favour of a universal moratorium on death penalty executions have been adopted by the UN General Assembly. In an earlier paper (Pascoe and Bae 2020) we examined UN member states’ voting patterns over these seven resolutions, asking why some countries vote in a manner seemingly contradictory to their domestic death penalty practices. With a slightly different focus, we now further explore idiosyncratic state behaviour, this time through an analysis of co-sponsorship and the note verbale of dissociation. Our assumption is that states which plan to vote ‘yes’ in the plenary will also co-sponsor the resolution beforehand. We also presume that states which vote ‘no’ in the plenary will sign the note verbale invariably circulated several months later, as a further means of condemnation.

However, when it comes to the moratorium resolutions, not all member states fit into either of these binary categories. Many countries situate themselves in between the two groups of ‘genuine’ supporters and opponents. These countries in the middle evince inconsistency between their plenary votes and what we term their ‘association behaviour’ before or after the plenary, consisting of co-sponsorship and adherence to the note verbale. This paper analyses these groups of countries to determine the underlying causes for their ambivalent, or even contradictory, positions concerning the moratorium resolutions. The findings of this research stand to enrich not only the academic literature on international organizations, but also to inform the campaigning efforts of abolitionist UN member states and non-governmental organizations.

• Document type Academic report
• Themes list Moratorium

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

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Death Row Conditions, Legal Representation, Death Penalty, Statistics,

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

• Document type International law - United Nations
• Available languages A/HRC/48/L.17/Rev.1 قرار اعتمده جملس حقوق اإلنسايفA/HRC/48/L.17/Rev.1 Resolución aprobada por el Consejo de DerechosA/HRC/48/L.17/Rev.1 Résolution adoptée par le Conseil des droits de l’hommeA/HRC/48/L.17/Rev.1 Резолюция, принятая Советом по правам человекаA/HRC/48/L.17/Rev.1 人权理事会 月 日通过的决议

Find the main facts and figures regarding the death penalty worldwide in 2021 and early 2022.

• Document type World Coalition
• Available languages Faits et chiffres 2022

Find the main facts and figures regarding the death penalty worldwide in 2022 and early 2023.

• Document type Campaigning / World Coalition
• Available languages 21ème Journée Mondiale - Faits et chiffres 2023

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

Leaflet for the 21th World Day against the death penalty (2023), on torture and the death penalty.

• Document type Campaigning / World Coalition
• Available languages كتيب - اليوم العالمي 2023Brochure - Journée mondiale 2023

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

Facts and Figures 2008

• Document type Campaigning
• Themes list Trend Towards Abolition
• Available languages Faits et chiffres 2008

Facts and Figures world day against the death penalty 2013

• Document type Campaigning
• Themes list Trend Towards Abolition
• Available languages Faits et chiffres 2013PENA DE MUERTE HECHOS Y DATOS

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

To mark the fortieth anniversary of the establishment of the mandate on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Morris Tidball-Binz, offers a reflection from a historical perspective on the establishment of the mandate and the subsequent evolution of its working methods. He retraces the development of international standards and guidelines elaborated with the substantial contribution and support of the various mandate holders. The report also contains an analysis of the question of the death penalty from the perspective of whether it is compatible with the absolute prohibition of torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and recommendations aimed at ensuring the protection of the right to life, as guaranteed under international human rights instruments.

• Document type United Nations report

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

Utafiti wa Amnesty International kuhusu matumizi ya adhabu ya kifo mwaka wa 2022 ulionyesha kwambakulikuwa na ongezeko kubwa la idadi ya watu wanaojulikana kuwa walinyongwa duniani, likiwemo ongezekokubwa la watu walionyongwa kutokana na makosa yanayohusiana na dawa za kulevya

• Document type NGO report

Fairness for those defendants facing the ultimate punishment of death requires that they be afforded zealous advocacy by competent counsel, and that counsel be provided with the resources necessary to effectively represent their clients. Stating that “[o]ur capital system is haunted by the demon of error, error in determining guilt, and error in determining who among the guilty deserves to die,” Governor Ryan cited many deficiencies in the justice system in Illinois, including poor lawyering and inadequate resources for defense counsel, in arriving at his decision to commute all death sentences. Over the years the imposition of the death penalty has too often been a function of unqualified counsel or counsel who lacked the resources, including time, funding, and provision of investigative, expert and supportive services, to competently represent their clients, rather than a reasoned decision based on the circumstances of the crime and the background and character of the defendant.

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

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 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

يق |ناسنلإا قوقحل ةيماسلا ةدحتملا مملأا ةيضوفم بتكم / | |2013||externe | | http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/AboutUs/CivilSociety/OHCHRFundsGuide_ar.pdf|OHCHR-2013|Academic report|International law, Networks, |
en12671|OHCHR Practical Guide for Civil Society: Human Rights Funds, Grants and Fellowships|This Practical Guide – the fourth in the series of practical guides for civil society – provides a brief description of funding sources, grants and fellowships administered by or with the participation of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). |Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights / | |2013||externe | | http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/AboutUs/CivilSociety/OHCHRFundsGuide_en.pdf|OHCHR-2013|Academic report|International law, Networks, |
en12670|Fighting for Their Lives: Inside the Experience of Capital Defense Attorneys|How do attorneys who represent clients facing the death penalty cope with the stress and trauma of their work? Through conversations with twenty of the most experienced and dedicated post-conviction capital defenders in the United States, Fighting for Their Lives explores this emotional territory for the first time|Susannah Sheffer / Vanderbilt University Press / | |2013|United States|externe | | http://www.susannahsheffer.com/fighting-for-their-lives.html||Book|Country/Regional profiles, |
en12669|Invers Theatre Company presents A Cry Too Far From Heaven”

• Document type Working with...
• Themes list Academic report

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,

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,

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

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

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 

The use of capital punishment has been an issue addressed by international human rights law since the earliest days of the United Nations. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the General Assembly in 1948, and an instrument widely recognised as the gold standard for human rights, affirms the right to life and the prohibition of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. The Death Penalty Project produced this resource on international law and the death penalty.

• Document type NGO report

Over the past year, Southeast Asia has witnessed significant setbacks with regard to the abolitionof the death penalty. Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore have all carried out executions. It isunknown whether any executions were carried out in Vietnam, where statistics on the deathpenalty continue to be classified as ‘state secrets.’ In the name of combating drug trafficking,Indonesian President Joko Widodo is rapidly becoming Southeast Asia’s top executioner. ThePhilippines, which effectively abolished the death penalty for all crimes in 2006, is consideringreinstating capital punishment as part of President Rodrigo Duterte’s ill-conceived and disastrous‘war on drugs.’

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

• Document type Campaigning / World Coalition
• Available languages 22e Journée mondiale contre la peine de mort - Faits et chiffres

The report, published for the 13th World Day against the Death Penalty, analyzes how the death penalty is applied for drug-related crimes in Asia, evaluates the most common arguments used by governments to justify their use of this inhumane and illegal measure, and exposes why these arguments are unjustified. Asia is the continent that executes the most people for drug-related crimes. However, the death penalty has not proven to be effective in reducing drug crimes in Asia.

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Drug Offences, Country/Regional profiles,

• Document type World Coalition
• Themes list Gender
• Available languages Faits et chiffres Les personnes LGBTQIA+ et la peine de mort - 21e journée mondiale contre la peine de mort

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

O propósito deste relatório anual sobre a Homofobia do Estado, expresso desde sua primeira edição, em 2007, é revelar e denunciar os países que, no século 21, negam às pessoas LGBTI os direitos humanos mais fundamentais: o direito à vida e à liberdade, na esperança de que, a cada ano, mais e mais países abandonem a ―comunidade‖ dos países homofóbicos.Em comparação com o relatório do ano passado, em que relacionamos os 77 países que perseguiam as pessoas com base em sua orientação sexual, no presente relatório você encontrará ‗apenas‖ 76 países nesta mesma lista, incluindo os cinco ―infames‖,que condenam as pessoas à morte com base em sua orientação sexual: Irã, Mauritânia, Arábia Saudita, Sudão e Iêmen (e algumas regiões da Nigéria e da Somália). Um país a menos, se comparado ao relatório de 2009, pode parecer um avanço insignificante, até nos darmos conta de que ele compreende 1/6 da população humana.

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Homosexuality,
• Available languages State-sponsored Homophobia: A world survey of laws prohibiting same sex activity between consenting adultsHomophobie d'État: Une enquête mondiale sur les lois qui interdisent la sexualité entre adultes consentants de même sexeHomofobia de Estado: Un informe mundial sobre las leyes que prohiben la actividad homosexual con consentimiento entre personas adultas

Ufuatiliaji wa Amnesty International wa matumizi ya adhabu ya kifo duniani ulibaini watu
1,153 wanaofahamika kuwa walinyongwa mwaka 2023, ambalo ni ongezeko la asilimia
31 kutoka 883 mwaka 2022. Hata hivyo nchi zinazowanyonga watu zilipungua kwa
kiwango kikubwa kutoka 20 mwaka 2022 hadi 16 mwaka 2023

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Trend Towards Abolition

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

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

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

In Malaysian jails, more than 1,200 prisoners are on death row. For them, news that the government was planning to abolish the death penalty provided a much-needed glimmer of hope. But many Malaysians want to keep the law as it is, saying capital punishment deters criminals and helps keep citizens safe. Families of murder victims say the only way to get justice for their loved ones is by hanging the perpetrators. 101 East meets the people on either side of this emotional life-and-death debate and investigates if Malaysia is ready to abolish the death penalty.

• Document type Multimedia content
• Countries list Malaysia
• Themes list Moratorium , Murder Victims' Families, Death Row Phenomenon,

The present report is submitted pursuant to decision 18/117 and resolution 42/24 of the Human Rights Council. The report focuses on consequences arising from the lack of transparency in the application and imposition of the death penalty on the enjoyment of human rights.

• Document type United Nations report
• Themes list Public Opinion 

• Document type International law - United Nations
• Available languages A/HRC/RES/54/35قرار اعتمده مجلس حقوق اإلنسانA/HRC/RES/54/35 Resolución aprobada por el Consejo de Derechos HumanosA/HRC/RES/54/35 Résolution adoptée par le Conseil des droits de l’hommeA/HRC/RES/54/35 Резолюция, принятая Советом по правам человекаA/HRC/RES/54/35 人权理事会 通过的决议

Mr. Page committed an atrocious crime. He did not know his victim, Peyton Tuthill, a young woman who had recently graduated from college and moved to Denver. But he was in her house, looking for money and items to sell, when she returned from a job interview. Instead of leaving her home, Mr. Page stayed to beat Peyton Tuthill, tie her up, stab her, slit her throat, rape her repeatedly, and eventually, kill her. Clearly, Ms. Tuthill did not deserve to die such a tortured death. Clearly, her death resulted from an egregious crime. However, the answer to the question of whether Mr. Page should be executed for committing this murder is not as clear. Some would answer affirmatively, others negatively. An important question is: who should decide?

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

The general feeling of NGOs and abolitionists in Uganda is that the most pressing issue is the situation of ordinary prisoners, while the death penalty as administered by the military should be addressed at a second stage. The questions relating to the military are sensitive issues in Uganda, which might also explain that position. The focus of the present report is consequently mainly on the death sentences pronounced by ordinary criminal courts.

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

Violations of due process in the case of prisoners condemned to death. There are known cases of torture carried out by agents of the State and there is no legal provision that allows the Executive branch to grant a pardon and, subsequently, to commute a death sentence. The Guatemalan State has executed various individuals despite the fact that the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights had petitioned for precautionary measures; this constitutes a flagrant and recurrent violation of Guatemala’s international human rights commitments.The Guatemalan State, in addition to not having adequate public policies for prisons, also has no laws regulating prisons and conditions of detention, in spite of the fact that various UN instruments are devoted to that question.

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Due Process , Country/Regional profiles,

Individuals are regularly sentenced to death in murder cases, but no statistics are published about the number of condemnations. Under the Tanzanian Penal Code, the death sentence remains a mandatory penalty for murder while it can also be applied for treason. As of April 2003, 370 persons (359 males and 11 females) were awaiting execution in the prisons of mainland Tanzania in conditions that might amount to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. There are a number of dysfunctions in the Tanzanian legal system, which seems to represent a threat to the rule of law, and an obstacle to reform: the unwillingness of the Executive to have its decisions challenged in judicial proceedings, and; the existence of a Penal System essentially based on retaliation towards the offenders rather than rehabilitation ; e.g. corporal punishments can still be applied for numerous offences, in spite of the fact that they clearly violate international and regional human rights instruments. Furthermore, pervasive corruption in the police and the judiciary represents a serious threat to the due process of law, including in death penalty cases.

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Transparency, Mandatory Death Penalty,
• Available languages Swahili : Tanzania: Adhabu ya Kifo Imerasimishwa?Tanzanie: La peine de mort institutionnalisée

در دوراني که حرکت به سوي لغو مجازات اعدام در سراسر جهان رو به گسترش است، تمايز جمهوري اسلامي ايران در تعداد زياد اعدام هايي است که در شرايطي آشکارا ناقض�? موازين بين المللي حقوق بشر انجام مي پذيرد. محاکمه های ناعادلانه، اعدام نوجوانان، هد�? گیری اقلیت های قومی و مذهبی… مجازات اعدام در نقض آشکار تعهدات ایران بر اساس قانون بین المللی حقوق بشر انجام می پذیرد.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list Iran (Islamic Republic of)
• Themes list Minorities, Fair Trial, Country/Regional profiles,
• Available languages Iran/death penalty: A state terror policy

This report determined that the death penalty remains a sensitive and secretive issue in Botswana. The authorities are reluctant to encourage public debate about the death penalty and its possible abolition. There is a total lack of transparency in the actual execution process of the death sentence. The hasty way in which most recent hangings have been carried out, further cast doubt upon the willingness of the Government of Botswana to seriously address this issue.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list Botswana
• Themes list Transparency, 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

On August 1, 2005, President Karimov announced, through a presidential decree, that the abolition of the death penalty was planned for January 1, 2008. The report concludes that the Uzbek authorities are responsible of serious and systematic human rights violations in the framework of the administration of criminal justice. The rights of those arrested are systematically violated. They often lack any access to a lawyer during their pre-trial detention, their families are not informed and torture is used in order to extort confessions, which often serve as a basis for their condemnation.

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Torture, Death Row Conditions, Country/Regional profiles,
• Available languages Смертная казнь в Узбекистане: пытки и секретностьLa peine de mort en Ouzbékistan: torture et opacité