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Detailed Factsheet 2010

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

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

Intiatives World Day 2005

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

In criminal justice matters, Jamaica has been rightly praised for its de-facto abolitionist
stance on the death penalty: nobody has been executed on the island since 1988.
However, the alternative to death is imprisonment. For many years, NGOs, the UN
Human Rights Committee, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and
various independent and internal reports have expressed serious concern about the
conditions in which Jamaica detains its prisoners.

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

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

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 

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

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

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

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

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

Leaflet Lobbying

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

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

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,

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

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

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

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

Initiatives World Day 2006

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

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

Facts and Figures 2007

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

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

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

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

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

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,

Written by a team including experts in the fields of capital defense, gender rights, gender-sensitive mitigation and the rights of transgender persons, the guide includes sections on gender-based violence, women’s mental health, prison conditions, discrimination in the legal system, working with the media, and how to build a gender-sensitive team. It also includes a step-by-step gender-sensitive interview protocol that builds on resources developed by the anti-violence community and is tailored to the needs of defense teams.

• Document type Legal Representation
• Themes list Legal Representation / Women
• Available languages Défendre les femmes et les personnes transgenres confrontées à des peines extrêmes

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

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

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

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

Facts and Figures 2009

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

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

Initiatives World Day 2004

• Document type Campaigning
• Themes list Trend Towards Abolition
• Available languages Initiatives journée mondiale 2004

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

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

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,

“No one believed me” is a quote from Merri Utami, who was sentenced to death for drug trafficking in Indonesia in 2002. Her quote reflects the injustices faced by women accused of capital drug offenses around the world: many decision-makers disbelieve women’s plausible innocence claims or discount the effects of relationships and economic instability on women’s decisions to traffic drugs.

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Drug Offenses / Women
• Available languages

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

Facts and Figures 2008

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

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

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 

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

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

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

• 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

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

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

• 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Italian Poster 2005

• Document type Campaigning
• Themes list Trend Towards Abolition

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

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 report documents the processes by which 14 jurisdictions abolished the death penalty in law. The conclusions attempt to identify patterns and draw conclusions in the hope that they will provide ideas, insights and inspiration to countries that either already are on their path to abolition or yet have to embark on it.

• Document type Academic report
• Themes list Trend Towards Abolition, Country/Regional profiles,

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 

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

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

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

NGO coalition report submitted to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights

• Document type Academic report

The San Diego chapter of California People of Faith Working Against the DeathPenalty educates and mobilizes faith communities to act to abolish the death penalty in California. We are a nonpartisan, statewide, interfaith organization. As communities of faith, we join together to take responsibility for the killing of our citizens by the State of California. As people of faith, we know that the God/Wisdom of all faiths calls us to something more: a high and often difficult standard of love, forgiveness and justice that is rooted not in retribution but rather in redemption and restoration. The death penalty denies the sacredness of human life. Spiritually, the death penalty diminishes us all. As we invest in vengeance in this society, we divest ourselves of compassion. As we support retribution, we neglect restorative justice. We cannot be a community of compassion and unity if we choose to destroy one another. And we should not allow the State to do it for us.

• Document type Working with...
• Themes list Networks,

8 Myths about the death penalty are explored in this text: 1. the death penalty is needed to keep society safe, 2. the death penalty is applied fairly, 3. the death penalty is used worldwide, 4. the death penalty deters crime, 5. execution is cheaper than permanent imprisonment, 6. the death penalty offers justice to victims’ families, 7. only the truly guilty get the death penalty, 8. religious teachings support the death penalty.

• Document type Arguments against the death penalty
• Themes list Networks,
• Available languages Mitos y Realidades de la Pena de Muerte

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

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

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

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

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,

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

This document summarizes Amnesty International’s global research on the use of the death penalty in 2009. More than two-thirds of the countries of the world have abolished the death penalty in law or in practice. While 58 countries retained the death penalty in 2009, most did not use it. Eighteen countries were known to have carried out executions, killing a total of 714 people; however, this figure does not include the thousands of executions that were likely to have taken place in China, which again refused to divulge figures on its use of the death penalty. For an update to this document please see http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/ACT50/005/2010/en

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Statistics,
• Available languages أحكام الإعدام وعمليات الإعدام في عام 2009CONDAMNATIONS À MORT ET EXÉCUTIONS RECENSÉES EN 2009CONDENAS A MUERTE Y EJECUCIONES 2009

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

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

The present publication provides an extensive review of global trends in death penalty matters, a summary of the applicable international legal standards, and the current status of legislative reform related to the death penalty in South-East Asia. As a product of the OHCHR Regional Office for South-East Asia, this publication is intended to be a resource for further discussions in the region toward the abolition of the death penalty.

• Document type International law - United Nations
• Themes list Trend Towards Abolition,

This report is divided into three parts. In Part A, the Commission identifies flaws in California’s death penalty system that render it dysfunctional, and remedies we unanimously recommend to repair it. Repairing the system would enable California to achieve the national average of a twelve year delay between pronouncement of sentence and the completion of all judicial review of the sentence. In Part B, the Commission offers the Legislature, the Governor, and the voters of California information regarding alternatives available to California’s present death penalty law. The Commission makes no recommendation regarding these alternatives. In Part C, the Commission presents recommendations relating to miscellaneous aspects of the administration of California’s death penalty law. We were not able to reach unanimous agreement upon all of these recommendations, and dissents are noted where applicable. Commissioner Jerry Brown, Attorney General of California, agrees in principle with some of the Commission’s recommendations as set forth in his separate statement. Commissioner William Bratton, Chief of Police for the City of Los Angeles, abstains from the specific recommendations in this Report, and will issue a separate explanatory statement.

• Document type Government body report
• Themes list Networks,

This research paper focuses on the application of the death penalty and its alternative sanction in three countries of Eastern Europe: the Republic of Belarus, the Russian Federation and kraine. Its aim is to provide up-to-date information about the laws and practices relating to the application of the death penalty in this region, including an analysis of the alternative sanctions to the death penalty and whether they reflect international human rights standards and norms.

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment and Punishment, Death Row Phenomenon, Country/Regional profiles,
• Available languages Отмена смертной казни и ее альтернативы в странах Восточной Европы: Беларуси, России, Украине

საქართველოში ბოლო განაჩენი სიკვდილით დასჯის შესახებ აღსრულებულ იქნა სავარაუდოდ 1992/93 წლებში. სიკვდილით დასჯილთა შესახებ სტატისტიკურიინფორმაცია გამოთხოვილ იქნა სასჯელაღსრულების პრობაციისა და იურიდიული დახმარების სამინისტროს სასჯელაღსრულების დეპარტამენტიდან, თუმცა მიღებული პასუხის თანახმად, აღნიშნული ინფორმაცია ვერ იქნა მოძიებული

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Trend Towards Abolition,
• Available languages Отмена смертной казни и альтернативные наказания на Южном Кавказе: Азербайджан, Армения, Грузия

The aim of this research paper is to provide upto-date information about the laws and practices relating to the application of the death penalty. It includes an analysis of the alternative anctions to the death penalty (life and long-term imprisonment) and whether they reflect international human rights standards and norms.

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment and Punishment, Death Row Phenomenon, Country/Regional profiles,

California taxpayers pay at least $117 million each year at the post-conviction level seeking execution of the people currently on death row, or $175,000 per inmate per year. The largest single expense is the extra cost of simply housing people on death row, $90,000 per year per inmate more than housing in the general prison population. Executing all of the people currently on death row or waiting for them to die naturally – which will happen first – will cost California an estimated $4 billion more than if all the people on death row were sentenced to die of disease, injury or old age.

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Networks, Financial cost,

This report details the cases of thirteen men and one woman who were convicted of first degree murder in California and later freed after a court concluded that they had been wrongfully convicted.

• Document type Legal Representation
• Themes list Networks,

A leaflet detailing the facts that law enforcement should be aware of; how the system prolongs suffering of the victim’s family, mistakes that have been made, the uneven application of the death penalty – these amongst other topics are explored to inform law enforcement about the facts of the death penalty.

• Document type Working with...
• Themes list Networks,

This study is about the question of whether the death penalty is a more effective deterrent than long-term imprisonment has been debated for decades or longer by scholars, policy makers, and the general public. In this Article the authors report results from a survey of the world’s leading criminologists that asked their expert opinions on whether the empirical research supports the contention that the death penalty is a superior deterrent.

• Document type Article
• Themes list Deterrence ,

California Crime Victims for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (CCV) is made up of families, friends, and loved ones of murder victims who support alternatives to the death penalty.

• Document type Working with...
• Themes list Networks,

This booklet explains why it is important to write letters to the editor as a platform for distributing information to the public. It provides a guide to good letter writing.

• Document type Working with...
• Themes list Networks,

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

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

Poster for the world day against the death penalty 2003

• Document type Campaigning
• Themes list Trend Towards Abolition

Poster World Day 2003

• Document type Campaigning
• Themes list Trend Towards Abolition
• Available languages Affiche journée mondiale 2003

The report takes into account the standards developed within the Inter-American human rights system to restrict the application of the death penalty over the last 15 year.

• Document type International law - Regional body
• Themes list Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment and Punishment, Mandatory Death Penalty, Country/Regional profiles,
• Available languages La pena de muerte en el sistema interamericano de derechos humanos: de restricciones a abolición

The data herein are updated as often and as quickly as possible, with the last date of entry noted on the cover page. However, given the difficulty of gathering complete information from all jurisdictions and as soon as cases develop, these reports may under-report the number of female offenders under death sentences. The subjects of these reports are female offenders sentenced to death. They are not all referred to as women, since some were as young as age fifteen at the time of their crimes. However, no such very young female offenders are currently under death sentences. —- See bottom left hand corner of web page.

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

In 2007 the world continued to move closer to the universal abolition of the capital punishment. A historical landmark is the resolution on a moratorium on executions endorsed by the United Nations. By the end of the 2007, 91 countries have abolished the death penalty for all crimes. The death penalty has now been abolished in law or practice by 135 countries. Other subjects covered in this report include commutations, judicial reviews, use against child offenders; and extradition.

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Statistics,
• Available languages La peine de mort dans le monde : évolution en 2007LA PENA DE MUERTE EN EL MUNDO: NOTICIAS DEL AÑO 2007تطورات عقوبة العدام على النطاق العالمي في 2007

The world continued to move closer to the universal abolition of capital punishment during 2006. By the end of the year 88 countries had abolished the death penalty for all crimes. The death penalty has now been abolished in law or practice by 128 countries. Other subjects covered in this document include significant judicial decisions; the use of the death penalty against child offenders; resumptions of executions; and campaigning activities to promote abolition.

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Statistics,
• Available languages التطورات المتعلقة بعقوبة العدام في شتى أنحاء العالم في العام ٢٠٠٦La peine de mort dans le monde : évolution en 2006LA PENA DE MUERTE EN EL MUNDO: NOTICIAS DEL AÑO 2006

On the occasion of the International Day against the Death Penalty, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) urges member States of the Organization of American States (OAS) that retain the death penalty to abolish it, or to impose a moratorium on its application as a step toward abolition, and to ensure full compliance with decisions of the IACHR concerning death penalty cases. While a majority of the member States of the OAS has abolished capital punishment, a substantial minority retains it. The United States is currently the only country in the Western hemisphere to carry out executions.

• Document type Multimedia content
• Themes list Death Penalty, Statistics, Country/Regional profiles,
• Available languages Infografía: la Pena de Muerte en las Américas

The present report, prepared pursuant to Economic and Social Council resolutions 1754 (LIV) of 16 May 1973 and 1995/57 of 28 July 1995, and Council decision 2005/247 of 22 July 2005, is the eighth quinquennial report of the Secretary-General on capital punishment. It covers the period 2004-2008 and reviews developments in the use of capital punishment. The report confirms a very marked trend towards abolition and restriction of the use of capital punishment in most countries. The rate at which States that retained the death penalty at the start of the quinquennium have abolished its use either in law or in practice is comparable with that of previous reporting periods, and may even be accelerating slightly. Moreover, countries that retain the death penalty are, with rare exceptions, significantly reducing its use in terms of numbers of persons executed and the crimes for which it may be imposed. Nevertheless, where capital punishment remains in force, there are serious problems with regard to the respect of international norms and standards, notably in the limitation of the death penalty to the most serious crimes, the exclusion of juvenile offenders from its scope, and guarantees of a fair trial.

• Document type United Nations report
• Themes list Trend Towards Abolition,
• Available languages عقوبة الإعدام وتنفيذ الضمانات التي تكفل حماية حقوق الذين يواجهون عقوبة الإعدام : م ذكّرة من الأمين العامСмертная казнь и применение мер, гарантирующих защиту прав тех, кому грозит смертная казнь : Доклад Генерального секретаряLa pena capital y la aplicación de las salvaguardias para garantizar la protección de los derechos de los condenados a la pena de muerte : Informe del Secretario GeneralPeine capitale et application des garanties pour la protection des droits des personnes passibles de la peine de mort: Rapport du Secrétaire général死刑和保护死刑犯权利的保障措施的执行情况: 秘书长的报告