INDEX

With 149 executions in 2018, one of the highest rates since the 1990’s, the Saudi Kingdom seems to be locking itself into a violent authoritarian drift

In 2018 India followed a particularly repressive path by sentencing 162 people to death.

The Death Penalty Information Center’s 2018 End-of-Year report confirms decline despite strong lasting inequalities.

The Greater Caribbean for Life (GCL) notes that 19 December, 2018 marks the 10th anniversary of the hanging of Charles la Place in St Kitts and Nevis. He was the last person who was hanged in the English-speaking Caribbean.

A record number of States – 121 out of 193 member states – voted in favour of a moratorium on the death penalty at the United Nations General Assembly on December the 17th. A world without the death penalty may become a reality according to Chiara Sangiorgio, Amnesty International’s Death Penalty Expert.

Commemorating the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on 10 December 2018 is an opportunity to question the effectiveness of civil and political rights, but also economic, social and cultural rights, in the context of an increasingly globalized world that ostracizes, excludes, sentences to death and continues to execute.

In celebration of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights’ 70th anniversary, the 20th EU-NGO Forum was held in Brussels on 21-22 November 2018, during which a session on “International Actions against Death Penalty and Torture” took place. World Coalition Director Aurélie Plaçais was invited to participate in the panel discussion, alongside representatives from Coalition member organizations ECPM and FIACAT.

On 24 April 2018, ‘The People’s Jury Law’ established a new judicial framework to deal with serious criminal cases, including death penalty cases. As of its enactment, death penalty cases in China are now jury cases.

The NGO Forum, preceding the ACHPR session, was held from 20 to 23 October 2018, with “The Fight against Corruption” as its main topic.

Today the international community offered unprecedented support to a UN call to halt executions when the Third Committee of the UN General Assembly considered a draft resolution on a moratorium on the use of the death penalty.