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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 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,

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

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 on February 2024.

Founded in 2001, the Berkeley Law Death Penalty Clinic seeks justice for individuals facing capital punishment by providing high-quality representation and offers students a rich opportunity for meaningful, hands-on experience in high stakes, complex litigation. The clinic also tackles problems endemic to the administration of the death penalty and the criminal legal system.

The report continues the clinic’s racial justice research and advocacy by cataloging the states that gather prospective jurors’ self-identified race and ethnicity and those that do not. It examines what courts do with the information, including whether it is provided to the court and counsel for use during jury selection, and the consequences of these choices in furthering or obstructing jury representativeness and diversity. In particular, the report shows why the collection of prospective jurors’ self-identified race and ethnicity is vital to meeting state and federal fair cross-section guarantees and eliminating the discriminatory exercise of peremptory challenges.

• Document type Academic report
• Countries list United States

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

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

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

Published in 2024.

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

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

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 

For the 20th year in a row, the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty is calling for local initiatives and world-wide actions that shine a spotlight on the abolition of the death penalty. The goal of this Mobilization Kit is to inform of this year’s objectives as well provide ideas of activities that boost the global abolitionist goal. This year’s World Day is dedicated to people who, during the process of being sentenced to death, or following the sentence of their death, have been victims of torture.

• Document type World Coalition
• Available languages Kit de mobilisation Journée mondiale 2022

The World Coalition and its members have collected testimonies of victims of torture in the death penalty. Confessions, death row phenomenon, moments before the execution, psychological torture of those not sentenced to death, methods of execution. Read the stories of these victims.
We thank all those who agreed to share their testimonies and their stories.

• Document type World Coalition
• Available languages Outil témoignages - Journée mondiale 2022

Published on April 2024.

Researchers at Reprieve conducted an in-depth comparative study of botched lethal injection executions in the modern era of the U.S. death penalty, cross-referenced against the 1,407 lethal injection executions carried out or attempted during that period.

This report examines the phenomenon of botched executions by lethal injection, exploring the trends and contributing factors leading to botched executions through an analysis of 73 botched executions in the 1,407 lethal injection executions since 1977 (known as the modern era of the death penalty in the U.S.). This analysis used a process called multi-variable logistic regression, a type of analysis that assesses the odds of something happening considering multiple variables, to assess how identifiable characteristics (gender, age, and race) were associated with botched executions.

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

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

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

• Document type Article
• Countries list United States

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

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 

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 

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 La théorie de la dissuasion démystifiée

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

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

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

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

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

When faced with calls to join the majority of states worldwide that have now abolished capital punishment, a key justification, typically relied upon by retentionist states, is that their citizens are not yet ready for abolition, and that political leaders must represent ‘the will of the people.’ The Death Penalty Project produced this resource on public opinion and the death penalty.

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Public Opinion 

The most common justification for the retention of the death penalty among the minority of states that continue to sentence to death and execute individuals who are found guilty of committing certain serious offences is a belief that this punishment has a unique deterrent effect. The Death Penalty Project produced this resource on deterrence and the death penalty.

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Public Opinion 

Published in 2023.

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

• Document type Academic Article
• Countries list United States

Published in 2023.

At the end of 2023, 34 countries retained the death for drug offences. In July 2023 Pakistan took the landmark decision to remove the death penalty from the list of punishments that can be imposed for certain violations of its Control of Narcotics Substances Act. This year also saw notable progress in Malaysia, which abolished the mandatory death penalty for all offences, including drug-related ones. This reform may impact the lives of over 700 people on death row for drug offences and bring the country one step closer to total abolition of capital punishment. In stark contrast to these positive developments is the record-high number of drug-related executions in 2023 at least 467. Of those executed, at least 59 people belonged to ethnic minority groups (in Iran and in Singapore), 13 individuals were foreign nationals, and six were women. These figures confirm that these groups are uniquely vulnerable to capital punishment as a tool of drug control. Despite not accounting for the dozens, if not hundreds, of executions believed to have taken place in China, Vietnam, and North Korea, the 467 executions that took place in 2023 represent a 44% increase from 2022.

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Drug Offenses

While an examination of the social and political currents of each country would perhaps be the best way to answer the question “Why is there strong support for capital punishment in Southeast Asia?”, this paper will begin this effort by looking specifically at the Philippines, a society that has received more exposure to democratic tenets and human rights advocacy than other Southeast Asian countries (Blitz, 2000).

• Document type Article
• Countries list Philippines
• Themes list Public opinion,

The European Union (EU) is a family of democratic European countries working together to improve life for their citizens and to build a better world. The following chapters describe the Treaties, the EU institutions and the other bodies and agencies, explaining what each entity does and how they interact.

• Document type Working with...
• Themes list Networks,
• Available languages Comment fonctionne l'Union européenneEl Funcionamiento de la Unión Europea: Guía del Ciudadano sobre las Instituciones de la UE

The evidence reviewed demonstrates frequent and heavy-handed recourse to the death penalty by Saudi Arabia in recent months. At least 149 people were executed in 2018, with at minimum 46 remaining on death row at the end of the year. A significant proportion of those executed were political dissidents, and a number were children at the time of their alleged offending. Each of these features connotes a grave violation of international human rights norms.

• Document type International law - Regional body

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

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

This study analyzes the Palestinian legislations in light of the UN procedures and criteria on the issuance, imposition or execution of death sentences. The study is divided into two main parts, each of which is dedicated to either the international or national legislation on death penalty. This part is divided into two main chapters. Chapter One addresses the substantive provisions on death penalty and Chapter Two is concerned with the procedural provisions. This classification is inline with the international efforts for the abolition of death penalty, particularly because the UN, in its capacity as the representative of the international community, has not banned the capital punishment but opted for the introduction of a number of legal actions for the States to consider when they include such penalty in their legislations, or when such sentences are issued by the courts or actually executed. Thus, the procedural and the substantive provisions are addressed separately in this study, both at the international and national levels.

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list International law,

ICHR carried out this review in order to assist the PNA in its attempts to join international community that did abolish death penalty from their legal system. In order for the PNA to ratify the various international conventions stipulating respect for the right to life and prohibits the execution of every human being. In this study, ICHR aims to define the practical steps that the PNA should take in order to abolish death penalty from the Palestinian legal system. According to Article (10) of the Basic Law of 2002, the human rights and fundamental freedoms shall be binding and respected by the PNA which shall, without delay, accede to the regional and international declarations and instruments that protect human rights, especially those international charters and resolutions that governing the right to life, the abolition of death penalty, and/or placing restrictions on the procedures of its execution.

• Document type International law - Regional body
• Themes list Networks,
• Available languages مراجعة قانونية لعقوبة الإعدام في سطيني

The Death Penalty: A Worldwide Perspective by Roger Hood and Carolyn Hoyle is the Fourth Edition of a text that highlights the latest developments in the death penalty around the world. Roger Hood utilizes his experience as a consultant to the United Nations’ annual survey of capital punishment in compiling a wide range of information from non-governmental organizations and academic literature. The book explores both the advances in legal challenges to the death penalty and the reduction in executions, while noting the continued existence of human rights abuses. Problems include unfair trails, police abuse, painful forms of execution, and excessive periods of time spent in inhumane conditions on death row. The authors explore the latest issues related to capital punishment such as deterrence, arbitrariness, and what influence victims’ families should have in sentencing.

• Document type Book
• Themes list Death Penalty,

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,

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,

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

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

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

In 2021, the 19th edition of the World Day Against the Death Penalty (“World Day” on October 10) was dedicated to the invisible reality of women on death row, paving the way for new data on the issue of women sentenced to death. Many members of the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty (“World Coalition”), in preparation for 10 October, conducted research to document the situations of women facing the death penalty around the world. To systematize the information collected and have a global understanding of women sentenced to death, the World Coalition conducted a data systematization exercise.
This short report presents the main conclusions of this country exercise. These findings are a compilation of existing data available to the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty and its members organization up to December 2022.

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Gender
• Available languages Cartographie de données : les femmes dans le couloir de la mort

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

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

For the 21th year in a row, the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty is calling for local initiatives and world-wide actions that shine a spotlight on the abolition of the death penalty. The goal of this Mobilization Kit is to inform of this year’s objectives as well provide ideas of activities that boost the global abolitionist goal. This year’s World Day is dedicated to people who, during the process of being sentenced to death, or following the sentence of their death, have been victims of torture.

• Document type Campaigning / World Coalition
• Available languages Kit de mobilisation Journée mondiale 2023

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,

Published on February 2024.

Texas has executed more people than any other state. However, out of the 254 counties in Texas, 136 have never sent an individual to death row. Harris County—Texas’s largest county and home to the city of Houston—stands out as the “death penalty capital of the world.” Harris County has executed more people than any state in the United States except Texas3 and is responsible for a quarter of the 1,124 people who have been sent to Texas’s death row since 1973.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list United States

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 eleventh 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 law.
The Death Penalty for Drug Offences: Global Overview 2021 found that: 1) 35 countries still retain the death penalty for drug offences 2) At least 131 people were executed for drug offences in 2021 – a 336% increase from 2020. However, due to a severe lack of transparency, if not outright censorship, this is only a partial picture. This figure likely represents only a fraction of all drug-related executions carried out globally.

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Drug Offenses

The signatory organizations are convinced that the death penalty is incompatible with the prohibition of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, which is a peremptory norm of international law (jus cogens) and should thus be abolished. The death penalty is only tolerated by international law and standards to the extent that it may only be imposed for the most serious crimes and applied in a way that causes the least possible suffering. However, the signatory organizations believe that from the sentencing to the execution, the death penalty inevitably causes physical harm and psychological suffering amounting to torture or ill-treatments.

The present position paper documents the extent to which international and regional organisation have already recognised a violation of the absolution prohibitionof torture in the application and imposition of the death penalty.

• Document type NGO report / World Coalition
• Themes list Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment and Punishment
• Available languages La peine de mort et l'interdiction de la torture et des peines ou traitements cruels, inhumains ou dégradants

Published in April 2023.

Despite the reduction in the number of executions for drug offences during 2018-2020, a sudden increase in executions was recorded during 2021-2023: at least 131 known executions were recorded for drug offences in 2021, 253 executions in 2022, and 82 executions during the first 3 months of 2023 (Table). However, information concerning the death penalty in Iran is notoriously difficult to obtain because of the secrecy surrounding the country’s criminal justice process. This note provides a rare glimpse into the application of capital drug laws in the Islamic Republic of Iran. It exposes the idiosyncratic practices of the judiciary and its decision-making, using cases concerning the death penalty for drug offences—its imposition prohibited long under international standards. These judgments repeatedly use the language of ‘certainty’ in convicting the accused. In reality, to those familiar with basic fair trial standards, they raise serious concerns about miscarriages of justice that could potentially result in the erosion of legitimacy of the criminal ‘justice’ system in Iran.

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Drug Offenses

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

• Document type Academic report
• Countries list United States

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

Europe is today the only region in the world where the death penalty has been almost completely abolished. In the Council of Europe’s 45 member states, including the European Union’s 15 member states and its 13 candidate countries, capital punishment is no longer applied. The Council of Europe played a pioneering role in the battle for abolition, believing that the death penalty has no place in democratic societies under any circumstances. This determination to eradicate the death penalty was reflected in Protocol No.6 to the European Convention on Human Rights, on the abolition of the death penalty in peacetime, which was adopted in April 1983, then in Protocol No.13 on the abolition of the death penalty in all circumstances, adopted in May 2002.Introduced by Roger Hood, an international expert on death penalty legislation, this book reviews the long and sometimes tortuous path to abolition in Europe. It also addresses the tangible problems which countries face once the death penalty has been abolished, and related issues: the situation of murder victims’ families and alternatives to capital punishment, particularly the choice of a substitute sentence.The Council of Europe’s campaign for abolition is currently being pursued beyond Europe’s borders, in those states which have Observer status with the organisation, particularly the United States and Japan: the situation in these countries is discussed here.This publication will be of interest to all those who feel concerned by this issue, particularly members of NGOs, lawyers, officials in departments dealing with legal and criminal affairs, and human rights campaigners.

• Document type Book
• Countries list France
• Available languages Peine de mort - Après l'abolition

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

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

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

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

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 conviction of Amina Lawal in Nigeria for committing adultery and sentence of death by stoning created an international outcry of support to overturn her sentence. The support she received is a reflection of the outrage many around the world feel toward this particular method of execution, and in a larger context the growing social norm that the death penalty should be abolished. As more of the world looks upon the death penalty as unfair, or cruel and unusual, or as torture, arguably, a jus cogens norm prohibiting the death penalty has developed in international law, and will ultimately be the vehicle by which the death penalty will be abolished worldwide. Part I of this comment will detail the plight of Amina Lawal, and how her situation is indicative of the globalization of human rights norms. In Part II, this comment will examine the meaning of a jus cogens norm and how it can be established in the context of capital punishment. Using human rights treaties, the law and practice of other nations, and international tribunal decisions, Part III will assert, citing other contexts, such as the “right to life,” and the already entrenched jus cogens norm prohibiting torture, that a jus cogens norm abolishing the death penalty has arguably already been established. Finally, Part IV will assess what the effect of the establishment of a jus cogens norm prohibiting capital punishment.

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

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

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list United States

“[T]he [European Court of Human Rights] in Öcalan did not exclude that Article 2 [of the European Convention on Human Rights, protecting the right to life,] had already been amended so as to remove the exception permitting the death penalty. Moreover, … the position has evolved since then. All but two of the Member States have now signed Protocol No. 13 [to the Convention, concerning the abolishment of the death penalty in all circumstances,] and all but three of the States which have signed have ratified it. These figures, together with consistent State practice in observing the moratorium on capital punishment, are strongly indicative that Article 2 has been amended so as to prohibit the death penalty in all circumstances. Against this background, the Court does not consider that the wording of the second sentence of Article 2 § 1 continues to act as a bar to its interpreting the words ‘inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment’ in Article 3 [of the Convention, prohibiting torture and inhuman or degrading treatment,] as including the death penalty …” (Al-Saadoon and Mufdhi v. the United Kingdom judgment of 2 March 2010, § 120).

• Document type International law - Regional body / Regional body report
• Themes list Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment and Punishment / Death Row Conditions  / Fair Trial

Detailed Factsheet 2019

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

Detailed Factsheet 2010

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

Leaflet Lobbying

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

The worldwide situation to date: The worldwide situation concerning the death penalty has once again registered a trend towards abolition in the past year. The countries or territories that to different extents have decided to give up the practice of capital punishment total 133, including the first months of 2004. Of these 81 have abolished the death penalty completely; 14 have abolished it for ordinary crimes; 1, Russia, as a member of the Council of Europe is committed to abolish it and in the meanwhile apply a moratorium on executions; 5 are observing moratoriums and 32 countries are de facto abolitionist, not having carried out executions for at least 10 years.

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Statistics,
• Available languages Italian : I FATTI PIU´ IMPORTANTI DEL 2003 (e dei primi mesi del 2004)

Senate Resolution No.6 in 2011 called for a study of the contemporary capital punishment system in the Commonwealth. Pennsylvania is among the 31 states and the federal government that authorize capital punishment. During the last four decades in Pennsylvania, hundreds of murderers have been convicted and condemned to death; however, there have been only three executions.This study follows others on the same or related topics, including those conducted by the American Bar Association and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court Committee on Racial and Gender Bias in the Justice System. The SR6 report is the culmination of work done by the Justice Center for Research at The Pennsylvania State University, the Interbranch Commission on Gender, Racial and Ethnic Fairness, and an advisory committee comprised of judges, public defenders, district attorneys, victim advocates, inmate advocates, clergy, law enforcement officials, and other expert stakeholders.

• Document type Government body report
• Themes list Death Penalty, Statistics,

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

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

This annual report drafted by ACHRS aims to proportionate an analytical studio of the situation of the death penalty and capital punishment in the Arab World in 2011, and includes detailed information about the 21 countries which constitute the Arab World. It also contains tables and a conclusive reflection on the current state of capital punishment.

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

This study aims to assess the possibility of Viet Nam ratifying the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) aiming at the abolition of the death penalty. It analyzes: (a) the current international legal framework and the process of legal development to abolish the death penalty in selected countries, (b) the compatibility between the existing regulations on the death penalty in the Vietnamese legal system and the Second Optional Protocol of the ICCPR, and (c) the assessment of feasibility for abolition of the death penalty in Viet Nam.

• Document type International law - United Nations
• Themes list International law, Country/Regional profiles,
• Available languages Viêt Namese : Khả năng của Việt Nam gia nhập Nghị định thư tùy chọn thứ hai về bãi bỏ hình phạt tử hình theo Công ước quốc tế về các quyền dân sự và chính trị (ICCPR)

This paper begins by providing some basic information about children of parents sentenced to death, issues that persist through the whole of a parent’sinteraction with the criminal justice system. Next, it looks at issues that aresimilar to those faced by other children of prisoners, but focuses on the ways inwhich children of parents sentenced to death are different. For a more detailedaccount of the situation of children of prisoners worldwide, including recommendations and examples of good practice, read QUNO’s 2012 paperCollateral Convicts. Thirdly, the fundamentally different issues are considered, thoseonly children of parents sentenced to death experience. There are a limitednumber of recommendations included throughout: these are not intended to becomprehensive, instead only covering those areas where there is already clarity about a positive way forward.

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Murder Victims' Families,
• Available languages Japanese : 死刑囚の子ども達の 未来に向けてتخفيف العبء عن الأطفال المحكوم آباؤهم أو أمهاتهم بالإعدامکاهش بار مجازات اعدام پدر یا مادر برای فرزندانAlléger le fardeau de la condamnation à mort d’un parent sur les enfantsCómo aliviar la carga que supone para los menores la condena a muerte de un(a) progenitor(a)

The QUNO’s report offers an updated review of differents elements of international law on the human rights of the child.

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list International law, World Coalition Against the Death Penalty,

FIACAT press release about the awareness raising workshop for permanent representatives to the African Union.

• Document type Multimedia content
• Themes list International law, Trend Towards Abolition, World Coalition Against the Death Penalty,
• Available languages L'importance de la sensibilisation des ambassadeurs auprès de l'Union africaine sur le projet de Protocol africain sur l'abolition de la peine de mort

本レポートは，初めに死刑囚の子どもについての基本的情報，すなわち，親が刑事司法制度において裁かれるに全過程を通じて現れる諸問題を提示する。次に，一般的な受刑者の子どもが直面する問題点との類似性を踏まえつつ，死刑囚の子どものケースは異なるものであることに焦点を当てる。世界における受刑者の子どもが置かれた状況の詳細については， 勧告や望ましい実践例も含め，QUNO発刊のCollat-eralConvicts （2012） を参照していただきたい。第三に，死刑囚の子どもだけが体験する根本的に特有な問題点を検討する。本レポートは，限られた数の勧告のみを掲示している。これは，網羅的であることを意図するのではなく，前向きな展開が明確な分野の勧告のみを取り上げたためである。

• Document type NGO report
• Available languages Lightening the Load of the Parental Death Penalty on Childrenتخفيف العبء عن الأطفال المحكوم آباؤهم أو أمهاتهم بالإعدامکاهش بار مجازات اعدام پدر یا مادر برای فرزندانAlléger le fardeau de la condamnation à mort d’un parent sur les enfantsCómo aliviar la carga que supone para los menores la condena a muerte de un(a) progenitor(a)

A Comparative Analysis of Capital Punishment provides a concise and detailed history of the death penalty. Incorporating and synthesizing public opinion data and empirical studies, Simon and Blaskovich’s work compares, across societies, the types of offenses punishable by death, the level of public support for the death penalty, the forms the penalty takes, and the categories of persons exempt from punishment.

• Document type Book
• Themes list Public opinion,

This paper will raise awareness of some of the issues facing the child. It will consider and elaborate on each of these issues in as much detail as the current literature permits.

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Murder Victims' Families, Country/Regional profiles,

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

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

The ACLU conducted an analysis of court rulings in the 25 Washington cases in which the death sentence has been imposed since 1981, when the current death penalty statute took effect. That analysis of almost two decades of death sentences and executions makes it clear that the system by which we impose and review death sentences in Washington is fundamentally flawed.

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Networks,

• Document type World Coalition
• Themes list Trend Towards Abolition
• Available languages Statuts de la Coalition mondiale contre la peine de mort 2023

Business engagement in the death penalty is critical because of the impact it can have. Putsimply: the power is in your hands. If your business is looking for a human rights issue whereit can achieve measurable change, advocacy on the death penalty must be considered.Global support for the death penalty is declining. Meanwhile, competition for investment isfierce. Governments and the public at large care more about job creation and a healthy economythan a system of executions. Therefore, the voices of businesses and business leaders havea huge role to play in shaping public dialogue about whether to keep – or end – the use ofcapital punishment.

• Document type Working with...
• Themes list Networks, Death Penalty,
• Available languages Entreprises Responsables et Engagements sur la Peine de Mort: Guide Pratique

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

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

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

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

Where the death penalty is applied, international law, jurisprudence and practice require that certain minimum standards are applied. The standards include international and regional treaties that are legally binding on states that have ratified them, customary international law that is binding on all states without exception, and non-binding standards and resolutions that nonetheless command the support of the majority of states. International understanding of these minimum standards has continued to evolve in the years since they were drafted, but the documents themselves do not always keep pace. This paper brings together international, regional and national standards, the most recent understandings of relevant experts and appropriate insights from other connected disciplines. It explores possible ways in which international minimum standards could be further strengthened at this time, whether through ECOSOC, the UN Human Rights Council, the UN Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice, regional bodies or national amendments to laws and policies. In each section, the issue and current practice is described, followed by examples of good practice or suggestions for improvement, finishing with a short list of recommendations for strengthening existing standards. These issues and recommendations are not final, but are intended to provide a point from which discussion can begin.

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list International law, Legal Representation,

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

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

It is of the utmost importance, in the short and medium-term, to develop an intense work of academically nature both of study and disclosure of the problems of the abolition of the death penalty in the international scenario, to complement and help the work of the diplomatic action and non-governmental organizations. To this effect it is proposed to keep REPECAP as an ever – growing scientific world network comprising academic law scholars, human rights centers, institutions of public law and Ngos, with expertise and skill in the problems of death penalty and interests in the field of international criminal justice, as well as young researchers who have been dealing with these topics or wish to get involved with the subject, regardless of nationality or locations.

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

This report covers the judicial use of the death penalty for the period January to December 2020. As in previous years, information is collected from a variety of sources, including:
– official figures;
– judgements;
– information from individuals sentenced to death and their families and representatives;
– media reports;
– and, for a limited number of countries, other civil society organizations.

Amnesty International reports only on executions, death sentences and other aspects of the use of the death penalty, , such as commutations and exonerations, where there is reasonable confirmation. In many countries governments do not publish information on their use of the death penalty. In China and Viet Nam, data on the use of the death penalty is classified as a state secret. During 2020 little or no information was available on some countries – in particular Laos and North Korea (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) – due to restrictive state practice.

• Document type NGO report
• Available languages أحكام وعمليات اإلعدام في2020CONDENAS A MUERTE Y EJECUCIONES 2020احکام مرگ و اعدامها۲۰۲۰سالCondamnations à mort et exécutions 2020ГЛОБАЛЬНЫЙ ДОКЛАД СМЕРТНЫЕ ПРИГОВОРЫ И КАЗНИ 2020

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,

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

• Document type Campaigning / World Coalition
• Available languages KIT DE MOBILISATION Journée mondiale contre la peine de mort 2024 - 2025 Sécurité et peine de mort

• Document type Campaigning / World Coalition
• Available languages L'INSÉCURITÉ RÉVÉLÉE : Voix contre la peine de mort

Published on December 18, 2023.

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

• Document type Article
• Countries list United States

Published in December 2023.

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

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

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 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bylaws of the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty As Amended by the 18 June 2021 General Assembly

• Document type World Coalition
• Available languages Statuts 2021

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

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

Most of the world’s countries or territories have either abolished the death penalty or no longer use it. More than half of those that retain the death penalty, of which many are in South-East Asia, do so for drug-related offences. Most prisoners on death row in South-East Asia have been convicted of drug-related offences, although law and practice vary considerably among countries that retain the death penalty.

• Document type International law - United Nations
• Themes list Death Penalty, Statistics,

Published in 2023.

This article is the first in a series that will systematically explore how gender has affected the criminal proceedings of women currently on death row. For this inaugural article, we have undertaken the first—and, to our knowledge, only comprehensive analysis of gender-based violence (“GBV”) in the lives of all women currently on death row, examining the prevalence of GBV and how it has shaped the lives and affected the criminal prosecutions of women facing execution. Our research reveals, for the first time, that almost every woman on death row in the United States has experienced GBV. Indeed,the great majority have experienced more than one incident of GBV in their lifetime. Our findings align with previous studies demonstrating that women’s pathways to incarceration are paved with physical, sexual, and psychological abuse. Our research further shows that both in the United States and around the world, defense attorneys frequently fail to present evidence of GBV in women’s capital trials. When they do introduce such evidence, they fail to fully explain the nature of their clients’ victimization and the harm they have suffered as a result. Moreover, prosecutors frequently rely on gendered tropes to discredit women’s accounts of violence such as childhood sexual abuse, rape, and intimate partner violence. Consequently, those who sentence women to die rarely comprehend the extensive trauma that the women have endured throughout their lives, and how that trauma relates to their legal and moral culpability.

• Document type Academic Article
• Themes list Gender / Women

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

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

Fifty-five (55) OSCE participating States have either completely abolished the death penalty or maintain moratoria on executions as an important first step towards abolition. However, in a global context where discussions focus on the threat of terrorism and a need to be tough on crime, it is perhaps not surprising that the question of reintroducing the death penalty surfaces at times, including in the OSCE region. It is, therefore, a good moment to reflect on the reasons why there is still support for the death penalty, considering the growing understanding that capital punishment is a cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment. Some of the most persistent arguments used to justify the use of the death penalty and its possible reintroduction will be discussed in the report.

• Document type International law - Regional body
• Themes list Trend Towards Abolition,

Published on April 3, 2023.

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

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

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

The World Coalition was created in Rome on 13 May
2002, following the commitment undertaken by the
organizations who signed the Final Declaration of
the First World Congress against the death penalty
in June 2001 in Strasbourg. It comprises 52 non-
governmental organizations, as well as bar asso-
ciations, trade unions and local communities.
The Coalition aims to reinforce the international
movement to abolish the death penalty, to reduce
the scope of capital punishment and put an end
to executions wherever they take place. To this
end, the Coalition facilitates the creation and devel-
opment of national and regional coalitions against
the death penalty. The Coalition also spearheads
lobbying efforts directed towards states and inter-
national institutions.

• Document type Campaigning
• Themes list Trend Towards Abolition
• Available languages Kit de mobilisation 2006

This report draws on experiences in other jurisdictions where capital sentencing laws have been struck down or abolished, thereby generating the need for prisoners already unlawfully sentenced to death to be given substitute sentences. It delineates the ways in which other common law jurisdictions have addressed the practical and procedural challenges of resentencing following the abolition of the mandatory death penalty – navigating potential human rights infringements and ensuring that satisfactory requirements of due process are met. Resentencing procedures must also be scalable and practically accessible to the large number of individuals (thousands in the case of Kenya) entitled to relief.

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

This review addresses four key issues in the modern (post-1976) era of capital punishment in the United States. First, why has the United States retained the death penalty when all its peer countries (all other developed Western democracies) have abolished it? Second, how should we understand the role of race in shaping the distinctive path of capital punishment in the United States, given our country’s history of race-based slavery and slavery’s intractable legacy of discrimination? Third, what is the significance of the sudden and profound withering of the practice of capital punishment in the past two decades? And, finally, what would abolition of the death penalty in the United States (should it ever occur) mean for the larger criminal justice system?

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

The present report outlines human rights challenges in addressing and countering key
aspects of the world drug problem. It also offers an overview of recent positive developments
to shift towards more human rights-centred drug policies, and provides recommendations on
the way forward in view of the upcoming midterm review of the 2019 Ministerial Declaration
and to contribute to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

• Document type Academic report / United Nations report
• Themes list Drug Offenses
• Available languages التحديات الناشئئئنة لت التصئئئد لمخئئئ لة المخدرات العالمية بجميع جوان ا ومواج ت ا في التمتع بحقوق اإلنسان تقرير مفوضية األمم المتحدة السامية لحقوق اإلنسان*A/HRC/54/53: Desafíos en materia de derechos humanos a la hora de abordar y contrarrestar todos los aspectos del problema mundial de las drogas - Informe de la Oficina del Alto Comisionado de las Naciones Unidas para los Derechos HumanosA/HRC/54/53 : Enjeux en matière de droits de l’homme de la mobilisation et de la lutte contre le problème mondial de la drogue sous tous ses aspects - Rapport du Haut-Commissariat des Nations Unies aux droits de l’hommeПроблемы в области прав человека при решении мировой проблемы наркотиков во всех ее аспектах и борьбе с нею Доклад Управления Верховного комиссара Организации Объединенных Наций по правам человекаA/HRC/54/53：全方位处理和应对世界毒品问题方面的人权挑战 - 联合国人权事务高级专员办事处的报告