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Document(s)

Death Penalty in Belarus: Murder on (Un)lawful Grounds

By International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) / Viasna Human Rights Center, on 1 January 2016


2016

NGO report

ru
More details See the document

In June 2016, FIDH and its member organisation in Belarus, the Human Rights Center ″Viasna″(HRC ″Viasna″), conducted an international fact-finding mission on the issue of the death penaltyin Belarus. The use of the death penalty (execution by shooting) in Belarus is provided for by Art. 24 of theConstitution of the Republic of Belarus as an exceptional measure of punishment for the mostserious crimes.Apart from the very fact of taking a person’s life, which is not only cruel, but also ineffective infighting and preventing crime, the use of the death penalty in Belarus is accompanied by many grosshuman rights violations.

Document(s)

Going backwards The death penalty in Southeast Asia

By International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), on 1 January 2016


NGO report


More details See the document

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

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

Document(s)

Swahili : Tanzania: Adhabu ya Kifo Imerasimishwa?

By International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) / Eric Mirguet / Arnold Tsunga, on 8 September 2020


2020

NGO report

United Republic of Tanzania

enfr
More details See the document

Katika hoja zinazotumika sana kutetea adhabu ya kifo ni kuwa inasaidia kupunguza uhalifu. Inaelezewa kuwa adhabu ya kifo inalinda jamii dhidi ya watu waliohatari na kuzuia wengine wasije wakafanya uhalifu. Hoja hizi zimethibitishwa kutokuwa na ukweli wowote. Je adhabu ya kifo inalinda jamii dhini ya uhalifu? Hailekei kuwa hivyo. Jamii zinazotumia adhabu ya kifo hazina ulinzi dhidi ya uhalifu kuliko zaidi ya zile jamii zisizotumia adhabu hiyo. Mahali ambapo kuna adhabu mbadala kama vile kifungo, ulinzi wa jamii, hautegemei kuwaondosha kimwili wahalifu. Zaidi ya hapo, inaweza kuelezwa kuwa tahadhari zinazochukuliwa kuzuia wanaosubiri, kuuwawa kujiua inaonyesha wazi kuwa kumuondosha kimwili mhalifu sio sababu ya msingi ya adhabu ya kifo.

Document(s)

Japanese : 死刑民主主義国家にあるまじき行為

By International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) / Sharon Hom / Etienne Jaudel / Richard Wild, on 8 September 2020


NGO report

Japan

enfr
More details See the document

廃止推進団体の努力にもかかわらず、世論には、死刑制度の継続を支持する強い傾向があることは確かです。死刑適用の実状を政府が隠し、これまでよかったといわれた治安が徐々に悪化していることもあり、この時機に政府が、国民に不人気な決断をすることはないでしょう。欧州評議会をはじめとする、国際組織からの圧力に対して、政府は「内政に対する許しがたい干渉」ときめつけています。保守派が与党の政府において、廃止に向けての議論が政治決定となる気配はありません。 日本のすべての弁護士が加盟する日弁連は、廃止法案提案でコンセンサスに至らなかったという事実が、現時点で死刑がなくなる可能性が少ないことを雄弁に物語っています。

Document(s)

No one is spared – The widespread use of the death penalty in Iran

By League for the Defence of Human Rights in Iran, on 5 November 2020


2020

Drug Offenses

Fair Trial

Iran (Islamic Republic of)

Juveniles

Women


More details See the document
  • Document type Array
  • Countries list Iran (Islamic Republic of)
  • Themes list Drug Offenses / Fair Trial / Juveniles / Women

Document(s)

The Death Penalty in the United States

By International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) / Antoine Bernard, on 1 January 2002


2002

NGO report


More details See the document

The report indicates that most of the people sentenced to capital punishment, especially the poor and indigent, did not benefit from a fair trial, and that the conditions of detention – which is very long – constitute “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatments”. Furthermore, the FIDH fears that the possible moratoriums on the executions considered by several States only aims at improving the criminal procedures prior to the executions.

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

Document(s)

The Death Penalty in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – Special edition for the 4th World Congress Against the Death Penalty

By Vietnam Committee on Human Rights / International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), on 8 September 2020


2020

NGO report

Viet Nam


More details See the document

The use of the death penalty is frequent in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV). Capital punishment is applied for 22 offences, including murder, armed robbery, drug trafficking, rape, sexual abuse of children, and a range of economic crimes, such as graft and corruption, fraud and embezzlement (for 500 million dong – $33,200 – or more of state property), illegal production and trade of food, foodstuffs and medicines. Seven political acts perceived as “threats against national security” carry the death penalty as a maximum sentence. Capital punishment is most often used to sanction drug-related offences, followed by corruption, black-market and violent crimes. Vietnam has some of the harshest drug laws in the world. A 1997 law made possession or smuggling of 100g or more of heroin, or 5 kilograms or more of opium, punishable by death. In 2001, 55 sentences were pronounced for drug trafficking alone.

  • Document type NGO report
  • Countries list Viet Nam
  • Themes list Firing Squad, Country/Regional profiles,

Document(s)

Iran/death penalty: A state terror policy – Special edition for the 4th World Congress against the death penalty

By Bijan Baharan / International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), on 8 September 2020


NGO report

Iran (Islamic Republic of)

fa
More details See the document

This report covers the various aspects of the topic including: domestic laws, international legal framework, execution of juvenile offenders, religious and ethnic minorities, and methods of execution. According to the report, there are over 20 main categories of offences, some of them with several sub-categories, in the IRI, which are punishable by the death penalty. The majority of those “offences” are certainly not among “the most serious crimes.” Some others should not be considered as “offences” at all. In conclusion, FIDH issued a wide set of recommendations to the IRI and the international community. Among others, it recommended the adoption of an immediate moratorium on executions in light of the serious shortcomings of the guarantees of due process and fair trial.

Document(s)

The Death Penalty in Botswana: Hasty and Secretive Hangings – International Fact Finding Mission

By International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), on 8 September 2020


NGO report

Botswana


More details See the document

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

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

Document(s)

Vietnam: From “Vision” to Facts: Human Rights in Vietnam under its Chairmanship of ASEAN

By Vietnam Committee on Human Rights / International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) / Quê Me: Action for Democracy in Vietnam, on 8 September 2020


NGO report

Viet Nam


More details See the document

The use of the death penalty is frequent in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. In 2009, the government reduced the number of offences punishable by death from 29 to 22. Capital punishment is applied for crimes including murder, armed robbery, drug trafficking, rape, sexual abuse of children, and a range of economic crimes. Execution is by firing squad. A draft law was introduced in November 2009 proposing the use of two methods of execution, either by firing squad or by lethal injection. Statistics on the number of death sentences and executions are not made public. Indeed, following criticisms by international human rights organisations, in January 2004, Vietnam adopted a decree classifying death penalty statistics as “state secrets”. According to the Vietnamese and international press, at least 100 people are executed each year in Vietnam. In 2007, 104 death sentences were pronounced, including 14 women. In 2010, the official legal magazine Phap Luat (Law) reported 11 death sentences for the month of January alone.

  • Document type NGO report
  • Countries list Viet Nam
  • Themes list Death Row Conditions, Firing Squad,

Document(s)

Death Penalty and the Indian Supreme Court (2007-2021)

By Project 39A, on 8 December 2022


2022

NGO report

India


More details See the document

Death Penalty and the Indian Supreme Court (2007-2021) maps the important trends and developments in the Supreme Court’s death penalty jurisprudence. These past 15 years have witnessed significant developments in the law on capital sentencing, post-mercy jurisprudence, and other procedural developments pertaining to the administration of the death penalty. Imagined as an intellectual successor of PUCL and Amnesty International’s doctrinal study of the Supreme Court’s death penalty cases between 1950 to 2006, in ‘Lethal Lottery: The Death Penalty in India’, this report highlights the sustained inconsistency and judge-centric reasoning in capital cases, with particular emphasis on the problem of arbitrariness in approaches to capital sentencing at the Supreme Court. 

  • Document type NGO report
  • Countries list India

Document(s)

Geometrical Justice: The Death Penalty in America

By Scott Phillips and Mark Cooney, on 12 October 2022


2022

Book

United States


More details See the document

In their new book, released in the Summer of 2022, University of Denver criminology and sociology professor Scott Phillips and University of Georgia sociologist Mark Cooney apply the concept of “social geometry,” developed in the 1970s by sociologist Donald Black, to analyze outcomes of capital cases. After reviewing extensive data collected in connection with the landmark Baldus Study of capital sentencing in Georgia and from the national Capital Jury Project, they conclude that the sentencing outcomes in the cases in those databases support key principles of Black’s theory: the higher the social status of the victim and the lower the social status of the defendant, the more likely a death sentence will be imposed.

  • Document type Book
  • Countries list United States

Document(s)

Faith in Action

By Amnesty International - USA, on 1 January 2006


2006

Campaigning


More details See the document

Using faith to combat the death penalty: This document has sermons, prayers and services, essays, views on the death penalty, resources for discussion and action, resources for next steps.

  • Document type Campaigning
  • Themes list Networks,

Document(s)

Death Penalty for Female Offenders

By Victor Streib / Ohio Northern University, on 1 January 2009


2009

Article

United States


More details See the document

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,

Document(s)

International Network of Academics Against the Death Penalty

By International Academic Network for the abolition of capital punishment, on 8 September 2020


2020

Working with...


More details See the document

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,

Document(s)

Portuguese : Faça ouvir A sua voz na União Europeia!

By Civil Society Contact Group, on 8 September 2020


Academic report

enenenenenenenenenfres
More details See the document

Facultando informações talhadas à medida sobre as instituições comunitárias ou sobre o modo de funcionamento das ONG europeias, fornecendo igualmente conselhos sobre a actividade de lobbying, este manual de formação, ilustrado com exemplos de campanhas realizadas ao nível europeu, foi elaborado com a intenção de servir as ONG e as(os) activistas que começaram agora a preocupar-se com a definição e a afirmação da sua própria estratégia europeia.

Document(s)

American Death Penalty Exceptionalism, Then and Now

By Jordan Steiker, California Western International Law Journal , on 1 February 2024


2024

Academic Article

United States


More details See the document

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

Document(s)

America’s Experiment With Capital Punishment: Reflections on the Past, Present, and Future of the Ultimate Penal Sanction

By Carol S. Steiker / James R. Acker / Jordan M. Steiker / Richard J. Wilson / Robert Blecker / Stephen B. Bright / Charles S. Lanier / Robert M. Bohm / Carolina Academic Press / Ernest van den Haag / Ruth D. Peterson / William C. Bailey / Jon Sorensen / James Marquart / Victor L., on 8 September 2020


2020

Book

United States


More details See the document

The second edition of America’s Experiment with Capital Punishment is an updated and expanded version of the comprehensive first edition. Chapters, authored by the country’s leading legal and social science scholars, have been revised to include a host of important developments since the 1998 edition. Thus, new evidence and information is presented concerning racial disparities in the administration of the death penalty, wrongful convictions, deterrence, the prediction of future dangerousness, jury decision-making, public opinion about the death penalty, the effects of the capital punishment process on murder victims’ and offenders’ relatives, death row incarceration, the costs of capital punishment, execution methods, and many other issues.

  • Document type Book
  • Countries list United States

Document(s)

Little Furmans Everywhere: State Court Intervention and the Decline of the American Death Penalty

By Carol S. Steiker & Jordan M. Steiker, on 1 September 2022


2022

Academic report

Trend Towards Abolition

United States


More details See the document

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

Document(s)

Resource Guide for Managing Capital Cases Volume II: Habeas Corpus Review of State Capital Convictions

By Asifa Quraishi, Esq. / Federal Judicial Center, on 1 January 2010


2010

Working with...


More details See the document

This guide was created to assist judges and court staff in managing capital habeas corpus cases by providing a summary of relevant law and case-management procedures. Section II, “Management of Individual Capital Habeas Cases,” summarizes the substantive law of federal habeas corpus that has an impact on case management and procedure (such as jurisdiction to appoint counsel, statutes of limitations, and evidentiary hearings) and describes various techniques judges have used to manage individual cases. Section III, “District-Wide and Circuit-Wide Approaches to Capital Habeas Corpus Case Management,” describes several practices used in the federal courts to monitor and streamline capital case management at a district- or circuit-wide level.

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

Document(s)

Women and the Death Penalty in Iran

By Iran Human Rights, on 8 October 2021


2021

NGO report

Iran (Islamic Republic of)

Women


More details See the document

In observation of the 2021 World Day Against the Death Penalty dedicated to women, Iran Human Rights is providing a report on the women executed in Iran over the last 12 years (2010-2021). The executions in this period are by no means representative of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s complete history of executing women; the number of female political prisoners executed in the 1980s must be acknowledged due to their sheer volume and abhorrent nature. But even today, there is ample evidence of their cruel and inhuman treatment of female prisoners, which will be highlighted in this report.

  • Document type NGO report
  • Countries list Iran (Islamic Republic of)
  • Themes list Women

Document(s)

Death Penalty For Drug Offences: Global Overview 2020

By Harm Reduction International (HRI), on 4 May 2021


2021

NGO report

Drug Offenses


More details See the document

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 tenth 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.

  • Document type NGO report
  • Themes list Drug Offenses

Document(s)

Initiatives World Day 2004

By World Coalition against the death penalty , on 10 October 2004


2004

Campaigning

Trend Towards Abolition

fr
More details See the document

Initiatives World Day 2004

Document(s)

Italian Poster 2005

By World coalition against the death penalty , on 10 October 2005


2005

Campaigning

Trend Towards Abolition


More details See the document

Italian Poster 2005

  • Document type Campaigning
  • Themes list Trend Towards Abolition

Document(s)

Facts and Figures 2007

By World Coaliton against the death penalty , on 10 October 2009


2009

Campaigning

Trend Towards Abolition

fr
More details Download [ pdf - 24 Ko ]

Facts and Figures 2007

Document(s)

Protection of the Rights of Children of Parents Sentenced to Death or Exectued: An Expert Legal Analysis

By Quaker United Nations Office / Stephanie Farrior, on 1 January 2019


2019

NGO report


More details See the document

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,

Document(s)

The Death Penalty in the Arab World 2011

By Alejandro Tagarro Cervantes / Amman Center for Human Rights Studies, on 1 January 2011


2011

NGO report


More details See the document

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,

Document(s)

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)

By European Union / United Nations Development Programme / Nguyen Thi Thanh Hai / Nguyen Van Hoan / Nguyen Minh Khue, on 8 September 2020


2020

NGO report

Viet Nam

en
More details See the document

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(s)

On the possibility of Viet Nam ratifying the Second Optional Protocol to the ICCPR aiming at the Abolition of the Death Penalty

By European Union / United Nations Development Programme / Nguyen Thi Thanh Hai / Nguyen Van Hoan / Nguyen Minh Khue, on 1 January 2019


2019

International law - United Nations

en
More details See the document

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(s)

The importance of raising awareness among ambassadors to the African Union on the draft African Protocol on abolition of the death penalty

By FIACAT / Xavière Prugnard, on 1 January 2019


Multimedia content

fr
More details See the document

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

Document(s)

FHRI and PRI submission to the UN Sec-Gen report on the status of the death penalty in East Africa – Kenya and Uganda April 2012

By Penal Reform International, on 8 September 2020


2020

NGO report

Kenya


More details See the document

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,

Document(s)

Sentenced to Death: A Report on Washington Supreme Court Rulings In Capital Cases

By American Civil Liberties Union / Washington, on 1 January 2001


2001

NGO report


More details See the document

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(s)

Bloodshed and Lies: Mohammed bin Salman’s Kingdom of Executions

By Reprieve UK and European Saudi Organization for Human Rights, on 31 January 2023


2023

NGO report

Saudi Arabia

ar
More details See the document

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(s)

Carrying out executions took a secret toll on workers — then changed their politics

By Chiara Eisner, on 16 November 2022


2022

Article

United States


More details See the document

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

Document(s)

The Death Penalty for Drug Offences: Global Overview 2022

on 24 March 2023


2023

NGO report

China

Democratic People's Republic of Korea

Drug Offenses

Indonesia

Iran (Islamic Republic of)

Malaysia

Saudi Arabia

Singapore

Viet Nam


More details See the document

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

Document(s)

Living with a Death Sentence in Kenya: Prisoners’ Experiences of Crime, Punishment and Death Row

By Carolyn Hoyle and Lucrezia Rizzelli, on 24 January 2023


2023

Book

Kenya


More details See the document

The Death Penalty Project’s latest report provides a comprehensive analysis of the lives of prisoners on death row in Kenya. It focuses on prisoners’ socio-economic backgrounds and profiles, their pathways to, and motivation for, offending, as well as their experiences of the criminal justice process and of imprisonment. It complements our previous research, a two-part study of attitudes towards the death penalty in Kenya, The Death Penalty in Kenya: A Punishment that has Died Out in Practice.
While 120 countries around the world have now abolished the death penalty, including 25 in Africa, Kenya is one of 22 African nations that continues to retain the death penalty in law, albeit it has not carried out any executions for more than three decades. As such, Kenya is classified as ‘abolitionist de facto’, the United Nations term for a country that has not carried out an execution for at least 10 years. Yet, while state-sanctioned executions no longer occur, hundreds of people are currently living under sentence of death and others are convicted and sentenced to death each year. As long as the death penalty is retained in law, there remains a risk that executions might resume if there is political change. Moreover, the plight and turmoil of those languishing on death row – consistently the poorest and most vulnerable – cannot be ignored. They are disproportionately sentenced to death and suffer the harshest punishments and treatment.

  • Document type Book
  • Countries list Kenya

Document(s)

Investigating Attitudes to the Death Penalty in Indonesia Part One – Opinion Formers: An Appetite for Change

By Carolyn Hoyle - The Death Penalty Project, in partnership with LBH Masyarakat and the University of Indonesia, on 28 June 2021


2021

NGO report

Drug Offenses

Indonesia

Public Opinion 


More details See the document

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 

Document(s)

Towards the abolition of the death penalty in Lebanon

By LACR / National Campaign for the Abolition of Death Penalty in Lebanon, on 1 January 2009


2009

Campaigning


More details See the document

Educational booklet compiling testimonies, arguments, legal and historical facts about the path towards abolition in Lebanon.

  • Document type Campaigning
  • Themes list Public opinion, Public debate, Trend Towards Abolition,

Document(s)

Annual Report: Death Penalty in Iran 2011

By Iran Human Rights (IHR), on 1 January 2011


2011

NGO report

enfafrfafr
More details See the document

The execution wave that began after the June 2009 post-election protests in Iran continues with high frequency. According to the present report, the execution figure in 2011 is currently the highest since the beginning of 1990’s.

Document(s)

The Death Penalty in Japan: A report on Japan’s legal obligations under the International Convenant on Civil and Political Rights and an assessment of public attitudes to capital punishment

By Saul Lehrfreund / Death Penalty Project, on 8 September 2020


2020

NGO report

Japan


More details See the document

This report was commissioned by the Death Penalty Project in order to assess Japan’s legal obligations on the use of the death penalty under the ICCPR, and to examine the related subject of public attitudes toward capital punishment in Japan.

  • Document type NGO report
  • Countries list Japan
  • Themes list International law, Public opinion,

Document(s)

Issues Impacting LGBTQ+ Prisoners

By Death Penalty Information Center, on 3 September 2024


2024

NGO report

Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment and Punishment

Fair Trial

United States


More details See the document

LGBTQ+ people, especially people of color and low income, experience high levels of policing and criminalization, leading to an overrepresentation of these individuals in the incarcerated population. A 2017 study from researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law, suggests that LGBTQ+ people are three times as likely to be incarcerated than the general population. Once incarcerated, LGBTQ+ people are often subjected to violence from correctional staff and fellow prisoners, as well denied medical care and access to mental health services.

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

Document(s)

Doomed to Repeat: The Legacy of Race in Tennessee’s Contemporary Death Penalty

By Death Penalty Information Center, on 16 June 2023


2023

NGO report

Fair Trial

United States


More details See the document

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

Document(s)

Responsible Business Engagement on the Death Penalty. A Practical Guide

By Responsible Business Initiative on the Death Penalty, on 1 January 2019


2019

Working with...

fr
More details See the document

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(s)

2021 OHCHR Report on Deterrence: High-level panel discussion on the question of the death penalty

By Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), on 14 January 2022


2022

United Nations report

Public Opinion 

aresfrruzh-hant
More details See the document

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(s)

The Last Meals Project

By The Last Meals Project, on 8 September 2020


2020

Working with...


More details See the document

This series visually documents the face and last meal of a convicted killer and is without question honest and true. This will be an ongoing project as executions continue to take place in the United States.

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

Document(s)

Anything But Humane

By Amnesty International - USA, on 8 September 2020


Arguments against the death penalty


More details See the document

A fact sheet on the lethal injection in the United States. This page details the process of lethal injection with statements of US health professional associations on participation in execution.

  • Document type Arguments against the death penalty
  • Themes list Lethal Injection,

Document(s)

Key legal Instruments and texts adopted on Abolition of the death penalty by the Council of Europe

By Council of Europe, on 24 January 2023


2023

Regional body report

Trend Towards Abolition

fr
More details See the document

All the Council of Europe documents related to abolition of the death penalty gathered in one page : decisions of the Committee of Ministers, resolutions of the Parliamentary Assembly, Treaties…

Document(s)

Procedure (Communications Procedure of the African Commission for Human and Peoples rights)

By African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights, on 8 September 2020


2020

Working with...

frfren
More details See the document

This document describes the procedures of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights stating who can apply to the court and what measures they may take.

Document(s)

Guidelines for Submitting Communications

By African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights, on 8 September 2020


Working with...

frfren
More details See the document

This document outlines the functions of the Commission, how to make presentations in front of the Commission, the procedures of examining the communication and the recommendations of the Commission.

Document(s)

Death sentences and executions 2020

By Amnesty International , on 26 May 2021


2021

NGO report

aresfafrru
More details See the document

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(s)

ISOLATION AND DESOLATION CONDITIONS OF DETENTION OF PEOPLE SENTENCED TO DEATH MALAYSIA – Bahasa Melayu

By Carole Berrih, Ngeow Chow Ying, ECPM, ADPAN, on 27 May 2021


2021

NGO report

Death Row Conditions 

Malaysia


More details See the document

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 

Document(s)

Myths and Facts about the Death Penalty

By Death Penalty Focus, on 1 January 2009


2009

Arguments against the death penalty

es
More details See the document

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(s)

Isolation and desolation conditions of detention of people sentenced to death Malaysia

By Carole Berrih, Ngeow Chow Ying, ECPM, ADPAN, on 27 May 2021


2021

NGO report

Death Row Conditions 

Malaysia

fr
More details See the document

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(s)

NGO Media Outreach: Using the Media as an Advocacy Tool

By Coalition for the International Criminal Court, on 1 January 2003


2003

Working with...


More details See the document

A guide for NGOs to use media effectively. This guide explains the importance of media, how to create contacts, how to prepare a media outreach campaign, how to deliver a campaign to the media and how to use available resources to support your media campaign.

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

Document(s)

Annual Statistics Report 2022

By Project 39A, on 22 February 2023


2023

NGO report

India


More details See the document

This is the seventh edition of the Death Penalty in India: Annual Statistics Report published by Project 39A at National Law University, Delhi. 2022 represents a significant shift in death penalty adjudication, with the Supreme Court recognising the need to reconsider the capital sentencing framework for the first time since it was laid down in Bachan Singh v. State of Punjab in 1980. In a momentous order, the Supreme Court noted the gaps in the death penalty sentencing framework and has sought to address these concerns through a Constitution Bench towards establishing the components of a real, meaningful and effective capital sentencing hearing. In another decision, the Court laid down guidelines for the collection of mitigating material by trial courts. However, in the same year that the Supreme Court cast grave doubts on the death penalty sentencing framework and its implementation by trial courts, it is of concern that 165 death sentences were imposed by Sessions Courts, the highest in a single year since 2000.

  • Document type NGO report
  • Countries list India

Document(s)

10 Steps to Writing a UPR Stakeholder Report

By The Advocates for Human Rights, on 1 January 2014


2014

Working with...


More details See the document

This four-page document proposes a roadmap for organisations interested in submitting reports to the United Nations’ Universal Periodic Review of Human Rights.

  • Document type Working with...
  • Themes list International law,

Document(s)

Capital Punishment A Hazard to a Sustainable Criminal Justice System?

By Ashgate Publishing / Lill Scherdin, on 8 September 2020


2020

Book


More details See the document

This book questions whether the death penalty in and of itself is a hazard to a sustainable development of criminal justice. As most jurisdictions move away from the death penalty, some remain strongly committed to it, while others hold on to it but use it sparingly. This volume seeks to understand why, by examining the death penalty’s relationship to state governance in the past and present. It also examines how international, transnational and national forces intersect in order to understand the possibilities of future death penalty abolition.The chapters cover the USA – the only western democracy that still uses the death penalty – and Asia – the site of some 90 per cent of all executions. Also included are discussions of the death penalty in Islam and its practice in selected Muslim majority countries. There is also a comparative chapter departing from the response to the mass killings in Norway in 2011. Leading experts in law, criminology and human rights combine theory and empirical research to further our understanding of the relationships between ways of governance, the role of leadership and the death penalty practices.

  • Document type Book
  • Themes list Due Process , International law, Trend Towards Abolition,

Document(s)

No Human Way to Kill

By Robert Priseman / Artfractures, on 1 January 2009


2009

Working with...


More details See the document

‘No Human Way to Kill’ comprises an exhibition of twelve etchings produced by the Goldmark Atelier in 2007 and a 102 page book published by Seabrook Press in association with the Human Rights Centre at the Universtiy of Essex in 2009. The etchings were first displayed at the University of San Francisco in 2008 and the European Commission Gallery in 2009.

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

Document(s)

The International Library of Essays on Capital Punishment, Volume 3 : Policy and Governance

By Peter Hodgkinson / Ashgate Publishing, on 8 September 2020


2020

Book


More details See the document

This volume provides analyses of a range of subjects and issues in the death penalty debate, from medicine to the media. The essays address in particular the personal complexities of those involved, a fundamental part of the subject usually overridden by the theoretical and legal aspects of the debate. The unique personal vantage offered by this volume makes it essential reading for anyone interested in going beyond the removed theoretical understanding of the death penalty, to better comprehending its fundamental humanity. Additionally, the international range of the analysis, enabling disaggregation of country specific motivations, ensures the complexities of the death penalty are also considered from a global perspective.

  • Document type Book
  • Themes list Death Penalty,

Document(s)

The International Library of Essays on Capital Punishment, Volume 2 : Abolition and Alternatives to Capital Punishment

By Peter Hodgkinson / Ashgate Publishing, on 8 September 2020


Book


More details See the document

The essays selected for this volume develop conventional abolition discourse and explore the conceptual framework through which abolition is understood and posited. Of particular interest is the attention given to an integral but often forgotten element of the abolition debate: alternatives to capital punishment. The volume also provides an account of strategies employed by the abolition community which challenges tired methodologies and offers a level of transparency previously unseen. This collection tackles complex but fundamental components of the capital punishment debate using empirical data and expert observations and is essential reading for those wishing to comprehend the fundamental issues which underpin capital punishment discourse.

  • Document type Book
  • Themes list Trend Towards Abolition, Death Penalty,

Document(s)

The International Library of Essays on Capital Punishment, Volume 1 : Justice and Legal Issues

By Peter Hodgkinson / Ashgate Publishing, on 8 September 2020


Book


More details See the document

This volume provides up-to-date and nuanced analysis across a wide spectrum of capital punishment issues. The essays move beyond the conventional legal approach and propose fresh perspectives, including a unique critique of the abolition sector. Written by a range of leading experts with diverse geographical, methodological and conceptual approaches, the essays in this volume challenge received wisdom and embrace a holistic understanding of capital punishment based on practical experience and empirical data. This collection is indispensable reading for anyone seeking a comprehensive and detailed understanding of the complexity of the death penalty discourse.

  • Document type Book
  • Themes list Death Penalty,

Document(s)

Closing the Slaughterhouse

By Dale M Brumfield, on 8 December 2022


2022

Book

United States


More details See the document

On July 1, 2021, Virginia ended a 413-year tradition by abolishing the death penalty.
Many of those convicted from 1608 to 2017 deserved harsh punishment – but Virginia took harsh to a whole new level with its “finality over fairness” philosophy. Four hundred years of her racist, mob-driven capital punishment system ensnared many innocent and undeserving victims under the toxic guises of protecting white citizens or being “tough on crime.” So many of those killed by the state died with their guilt or innocence lost to history.
Virginia leads the nation with 1,390 executions. After a 1976 Supreme Court decision, Virginia institutionalized and streamlined the parade to the death chamber more efficiently than any other state, executing between 1976 and 2017 a breathtaking 73 percent of all who received death sentences. The national average is 16 percent.

  • Document type Book
  • Countries list United States

Document(s)

Capital Punishment: New Perspectives

By Peter Hodgkinson / Ashgate Publishing, on 1 January 2013


2013

Book


More details See the document

The authors argue that capital litigators should use their skills challenging the abuses not just of process, but of the conditions in which the condemned await their fate, namely prison conditions, education, leisure, visits, medical services, etc. In the aftermath of successful constitutional challenges it is the beneficiaries (arguably those who are considered successes, having been ‘saved’ from the death penalty and now serving living death penalties of one sort or another) who are suffering the cruel and inhumane alternative.Part I of the book offers a selection of diverse, nuanced examinations of death penalty phenomena, scrutinizing complexities frequently omitted from the narrative of academics and activists. It offers a challenging and comprehensive analysis of issues critical to the abolition debate. Part II offers examinations of countries usually absent from academic analysis to provide an understanding of the status of the debate locally, with opportunities for wider application.

  • Document type Book

Document(s)

Handbook of Forensic Psychiatric Practice in Capital Cases

By The Death Penalty Project / Nigel Eastman / Richard Latham / Marc Lyall / Sanya Krljes, on 1 January 2018


2018

Working with...


More details See the document

The Death Penalty Project and Forensic Psychiatry Chambers have released two new publications, together providing an authoritative guide on the application of mental health law in capital cases. The resources respond to the knowledge that, in many countries that retain the death penalty, mental health issues are not being sufficiently addressed by the courts, leading to miscarriages of justice and putting vulnerable individuals at risk.This Handbook guides the reader through the role of the forensic psychiatrist in criminal proceedings and key principles of mental health law.

  • Document type Working with...
  • Themes list Death Penalty,

Document(s)

The Logical Framework Approach

By Greta Jenson / Bond - For International Development, on 1 January 2010


2010

Campaigning


More details See the document

The logframe is a tool for concisely describing the results of an LFA project design process, as it summarises in a standard format: What the project is going to achieve, what activities will be carried out, what means/resources/inputs (human, technical, infrastructural, etc.) are required, what potential problems could affect the success of the project, how the progress and ultimate success of the project will be measured and verified.

  • Document type Campaigning
  • Themes list Networks,

Document(s)

Turning the tide in the Caribbean: towards an end to the death penalty

By Amnesty International, on 1 January 2013


2013

Campaigning


More details See the document

This toolkit is for activists working towards the abolition of the death penalty in the English-speaking Caribbean. Drawing on many years of Amnesty International’s work to promote all human rights and to oppose violations of those rights, including the death penalty, it provides practical tips and suggestions for advocacy and campaigning. It sets out key arguments and relevant international human rights standards and provides information about resources that activists can use to strengthen and broaden the campaign against the death penalty in the English-speaking Caribbean.

  • Document type Campaigning
  • Themes list Public debate, Country/Regional profiles,

Document(s)

Philippines – Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women – Death Penalty – June 2022

on 21 July 2022


2022

NGO report

Philippines

Women


More details Download [ pdf - 443 Ko ]

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

Document(s)

Death by Geography: A County By County Analysis of the Road to Execution in California

By Natasha Minsker / Romy Ganschow / American Civil Liberties Union / Jeff Gillenkirk / Elise Banducci, on 1 January 2008


2008

NGO report


More details See the document

California’s death penalty is arbitary, unnecessary and a waste of critical resources. Whilst the vast majority of California’s counties have largely abandoned execution in favor of simply sentencing people to die in prison, 10 counties continue to aggressively sentence people to execution, accounting for nearly 85 percent of death sentences since 2000. California’s death penalty has become so arbitary that the county border, not the facts of the case, determines who is sentenced to execution and who is simply sentenced to die in prison. Pursuing executions provides no identifiable benefit to these counties but costs millions.

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

Document(s)

Joint Letter Calling on the HRC to Renew the Mandate of the Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran

By Human Rights Watch / Impact Iran , on 1 January 2018


2018

Multimedia content

Iran (Islamic Republic of)


More details See the document

In this joint letter many Iranian and international human rights organizations, urge the governments they called to support the renewal of the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran, during the 37th session of the UN Human Rights Council.

  • Document type Multimedia content
  • Countries list Iran (Islamic Republic of)
  • Themes list Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment and Punishment, Discrimination,

Document(s)

Nigeria: Waiting for the Hangman

By Amnesty International, on 1 January 2008


2008

NGO report

fr
More details See the document

More than 720 men and 11 women are under sentence of death in Nigeria’s prisons. They have one thing in common, beyond not knowing when they will be put to death. They are poor. From their first contact with the police, through the trial process, to seeking pardon, those with the fewest resources are at a serious disadvantage. This text describes the treatment of the death penalty in Nigeria.

Document(s)

Casebook of Forensic Psychiatric Practice in Capital Cases

By The Death Penalty Project / Marc Lyall, on 1 January 2018


2018

Working with...


More details See the document

The Death Penalty Project and Forensic Psychiatry Chambers have released two new publications, together providing an authoritative guide on the application of mental health law in capital cases. The resources respond to the knowledge that, in many countries that retain the death penalty, mental health issues are not being sufficiently addressed by the courts, leading to miscarriages of justice and putting vulnerable individuals at risk.This Casebook uses real-life examples to address ethical and professional questions and explore the application of legal principles.

  • Document type Working with...
  • Themes list Death Penalty,

Document(s)

The Juvenile Death Penalty Today: Death Sentences and Executions for Juvenile Crimes, January 1, 1973 – February 28, 2005

By Victor Streib / Ohio Northern University, on 8 September 2020


2020

Article

United States


More details See the document

This is Issue #77, the final issue of these periodic reports, having first been launched on June 15, 1984. On that date, the death penalty for juvenile offenders (defined as those under age 18 at the time of their crimes) was an obscure issue in law as well as in political and social arenas. During the last twenty-one years, these reports have been with us (1) through the intense litigation of the late 1980s, (2) through our society’s near hysteria about violent juvenile crime in the 1990s, (3) into the era of the international pressure on the United States to abandon this practice, and (4) now at the end of this practice. The validity and influence of these reports is indicated by thecitations to them in the opinions of leading courts, including the United States Supreme Court: Roper v. Simmons, 125 S.Ct. 1183, 1192, 1193, 1210, 1211, 1221 (2005); In re Stanford, 537 U.S. 968, 971 (2002); and Stanford v. Kentucky, 492 U.S. 361, 373 (1989). In the litigation leading up to the final juvenile death penalty case before the United States Supreme Court (Roper v. Simmons, 125 S.Ct. 1183 (2005)), the Missouri Supreme Court majority opinion included 12 citations to these reports: See Simmons v. Roper, 112 S.W.3d 397, 408, 409, 411 (Mo. 2003). This final issue of this periodic report is intended to document the status of the death penalty for juvenile offenders as ofthe day before the United States Supreme Court held this practice to be unconstitutional. These reports sketch the characteristics of the juvenile offenders and their crimes who have been sentenced to death, who have been executed, and who are currently under death sentences. —- See bottom left hand corner of web page.

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

Document(s)

Human Rights and the Death Penalty

By The Advocates for Human Rights, on 1 January 2012


2012

Campaigning


More details See the document

Four-page introduction to the status of the death penalty in international human rights law and the global trend abolition.

  • Document type Campaigning
  • Themes list International law, Trend Towards Abolition,

Document(s)

Juvenile Offenders Awaiting Execution in Yemen : “Look at Us with a Merciful Eye”

By Human Rights Watch, on 1 January 2013


2013

NGO report

ar
More details See the document

The 30-page report found that at least 22 individuals have been sentenced to death in Yemen despite evidence that they were under age 18 at the time of their alleged crimes. In the last five years, Yemen has executed at least 15 young men and women who said they were under 18 at the time of their offense.

Document(s)

WMA Resolution to Reaffirm the WMA’s Prohibition of Physician Partecipation in Capital Punishment

By World Medical Association, on 8 September 2020


2020

NGO report


More details See the document

The World Medical Association has strengthened its opposition to capital punishment with a resolution at its recent conference in Bangkok that “physicians will not facilitate the importation or prescription of drugs for execution.”

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

Document(s)

Sentenced to oblivion. Fact-finding mission on death row. Cameroon

By Ensemble contre la peine de mort (ECPM) / Nestor Toko / Carole Berrih, on 8 September 2020


NGO report

fr
More details See the document

The report “Sentenced to oblivion. Fact-finding mission on death row. Cameroon”, which was officially launched on 21 June at the Delegation of the European Union from Yaoundé to Cameroon, is the result of an unprecedented fact-finding mission, conducted from May to October 2018 in five Cameroonian prisons by the Cameroonian Lawyers’ Network against the Death Penalty (Racopem) and the association ECPM (Ensemble contre la peine de mort).

Document(s)

Take action on the death penalty

By The Advocates for Human Rights, on 8 September 2020


Campaigning


More details See the document

Two-page guide with tips and contacts for individuals interested in getting started in anti-death penalty activism in the US.

  • Document type Campaigning
  • Themes list Public opinion,

Document(s)

The Death Penalty: The Ultimate Punishment

By Amnesty International, on 1 January 2008


2008

Campaigning

enfres
More details See the document

Campaigning toolkit published by Amnesty International. A 16-page detailed advocacy document explaining why the abolition of the death penalty is necessary and how the theories behind capital punishment get it wrong.

Document(s)

Portuguese : A PENA DE MORTE NA LEGISLAÇÃO CRIMINAL COMUM DO BRASIL -O CASO MOTTACOQUEIRO E SUA REPERCUSSÃO

By SÉRGIO DA COSTA FRANCO, on 8 September 2020


2020

Article

Brazil


More details See the document

Este artigo trata da pena de morte dentro da legislação criminal brasileira, analisando algumas sanções impostas no período colonial, por meio do Livro V das Ordenações Filipinas, bem como da legislação pertinente no Brasil Império, pelo Código Criminal de 1830 e suas reformas de 1832 e 1835. Por fim, discorre sobre o processo Motta Coqueiro e sua repercussão na sociedade, após decisão condenatória do réu, posteriormente provado inocente, com o intuito de acabar com este tipo de penalidade no Brasil.

  • Document type Article
  • Countries list Brazil
  • Themes list Networks,

Document(s)

Legal Lynching: The Death Penalty and America’s Future

By Bruce Shapiro / Rev. Jesse L. Jackson / Anchor , on 8 September 2020


Book

United States


More details See the document

In this collaborative work, the Jacksons, father (former presidential candidate and founder of the Rainbow Coalition) and son (a congressional representative) with Salon.com editor Shapiro, pursue a nationwide conversation on the issues surrounding the death penalty one that begins with the proposal of a moratorium and could lead to the eventual cessation of capital punishment. This book describes a bureaucratic nightmare involving defense lawyers asleep at trial, vengeance-hungry politicos and a problematic, imperfect justice system in which the handing out of death sentences is skewed, both racially and economically. An objective examination of this penal system would be beneficial to all, say the authors: since the Supreme Court allowed executions to resume in 1976, one in every eight prisoners on death row has been found innocent and released. There are undoubtedly cases, the authors argue, where the proof of innocence didn’t see the light of day in time. Navigating the historical precedents of the death penalty and the reasons why federally mandated executions were restored following a 10-year moratorium imposed in 1967, the authors thoroughly detail legitimate questions regarding what they view as erroneous deterrence theories, scriptural misrepresentation and simple vengeance.

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

Document(s)

Roper and Race: the Nature and Effects of Death Penalty Exclusions for Juveniles and the “Late Adolescent Class”

By Craig Haney, Frank R. Baumgartner and Karen Steele, on 20 October 2022


2022

Academic report

United States


More details See the document

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

Document(s)

When Justice Fails: Thousands executed in Asia after unfair trials

By Amnesty International / Anti-Death Penalty Asia Network, on 1 January 2011


2011

NGO report


More details See the document

Failures of justice in trials which result in an execution cannot be rectified. In the Asia-Pacific region, where 95 per cent of the population live in countries that retain and use the death penalty, there is a real danger of the state executing someone in error following an unfair trial.

  • Document type NGO report
  • Themes list Fair Trial,

Document(s)

Death penalty in Iran: A State terror policy – Special Update for 11th World Day against the Death Penalty

By International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), on 8 September 2020


2020

NGO report

Iran (Islamic Republic of)

fa
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The change of administration in the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and taking of office by a new president on 3 August 2013 has not brought any change as far as the death penalty is concerned. Between the 14 June presidential election and 1st October, more than 200 people have been reportedly executed, including possibly three people who may have been younger than 18 at the time of the commission of the alleged crimes.Against this backdrop, FIDH and its member organisation, LDDHI, have decided topublish the present report to analyse the new penal laws in force in Iran that are invoked consistently to violate the right to life in general and to execute child offenders. Coinciding with 10 October 2013, World Day against the Death Penalty, this report aimsto serve as an update on the current state of application of the death penalty in the IRI.

Document(s)

Fact Finding Report of LFHRI of the Sentencing of 17 Indians to Death by the Shariat Court of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates

By Lawyers for Human Rights International, on 1 January 2010


2010

Legal Representation


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Lawyers For Human Rights International an Organisation of Lawyers having its base in Punjab, India, being part of an International movement against Death Penalty, decided to visit Sharjah jail in UAE to meet the 17 prisoners who have been sentenced to Death for killing a Pakistani youth. Two member team comprising of Navkiran Singh a Human Rights Lawyer & Activist from Panjab, practicing in the High Court at Chandigarh and who is the General Secretary of LFHRI along with another Lawyer Gagan Aggarwal, visited Dubai and Sharjah on 13th and 14th of April 2010 and met the Lawyers who have been hired to defend these 17 Indians by the Indian Consulate of UAE and also visited Sharjah jail and met all the prisoners. This report presents their findings.

  • Document type Legal Representation
  • Themes list Networks,

Document(s)

Creating More Victims: How Executions Hurt the Families Left Behind

By Robert Renny Cushing / Susannah Sheffer / Murder Victims' Families for Human Rights, on 1 January 2005


2005

NGO report


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This report, released appropriately on International Human Rights Day, serves to strip away the “conspiracy of silence” and give voice to a group of victims who have for too long been largely ignored in the debate surrounding the death penalty: the families of the executed.

  • Document type NGO report
  • Themes list Murder Victims' Families,

Document(s)

State-sponsored Homophobia: A world survey of laws prohibiting same sex activity between consenting adults

By Daniel Ottosson / International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA), on 1 January 2010


2010

NGO report

enfres
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The purpose of this annual report on State-sponsored Homophobia, as stated since its first edition in 2007, is to name and shame the states which in the 21st century deny the most fundamental human rights to LGBTI people, i.e. the right to life and freedom, in the hope that with every year more and more countries decide to abandon the ‘community’ of homophobic states.Compared to last year’s report, where we listed the 77 countries prosecuting people on ground of their sexual orientation, this year you will find ―only‖ 76 in the same list, including the infamous 5 which put people to death for their sexual orientation: Iran, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Yemen (plus some parts of Nigeria and Somalia). One country less compared to the 2009 list may seem little progress, until one realizes that it hosts one sixth of the human population.

Document(s)

MVFHR 飄洋過海來看你:看見被害人 20100704 台北信義誠品

By Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty / Murder Victims' Families for Human Rights / YouTube, on 1 January 2011


2011

Working with...

en
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這部短片是2010年美國被害人團體來台的報導(很抱歉,晚了一年才整理出來),今年,MVFHR將再度來台,並且也邀請日本的被害人團體一起在台灣巡迴演講「夜照亮了夜­:身為被害人」(http://www.taedp.org.tw/index.php?load=read&id=964)

Document(s)

Ghosts of Executions Past: A Case Study of Executions in South Carolina in the Pre-Furman Era

By John H. Blume, Samuel F. Leibowitz, on 1 September 2022


2022

Academic report

Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment and Punishment

United States


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The protracted and (somewhat) ongoing debate over whether lethal injection—in some or all of its forms—is cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment is the newest variation on the question of whether a particular form of capital punishment is inhumane and cruel. The history of capital punishment in the United States over the last two centuries has been punctuated by attempts to find less painful and gruesome ways to kill persons society has condemned to die. Ironically, at least from a historical perspective, some recent executions have seen condemned inmates or their attorneys elect some of the older methods, i.e., electrocution, or offer, as a potentially less painful alternative, the firing squad or death by lethal gas. And some states, including the main subject of this article, have resurrected electrocution and the firing squad because of a claimed inability or difficulty in obtaining execution drugs. In this article, the authors trace the history of execution methods in the pre-modern era of capital punishment (before 1972), primarily in South Carolina, pointing out the often-intractable problems with their implementation process (including specific “botches”), and then address other aspects of executions that have relevance to the current debate about the wisdom and efficacy of retaining the “modern” American death penalty in the twenty-first century.

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

Document(s)

Justice Denied : A Global Study of Wrongful Death Row Convictions January 2018

By Sandra Babcock / Cornell Law School / Madalyn Wasilczuk and Sharon Pia Hickey / Delphine Lourtau / Katie Campbell / Julie Bloch, on 1 January 2018


2018

Academic report

fr
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On March 7, 2018, the Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide launched its new report entitled Justice Denied: A Global Study of Wrongful Death Row Convictions at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. The report is a first-of-its-kind comparative study of the risk factors that increase the likelihood of wrongful convictions. The report illuminates the similarities in wrongful conviction risk factors in six countries across the geographical and political spectrum: Cameroon, Indonesia, Jordan, Malawi, Nigeria, and Pakistan.

Document(s)

Making the Last Chance Meaningful: Predecessor Counsel’s Ethical Duty to the Capital Defendant

By Lawrence J. Fox / Hofstra Law Review, on 1 January 2003


2003

Article

United States


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The thesis of this paper is that lawyers who have represented clients in capital murder cases at trial and appeal—not unlike all criminal trial and initial appeal counsel, but more urgently because of the circumstances—continue to owe important obligations to their former clients. These obligations have been just recently included in the latest version of the American Bar Association’s Guidelines for the Appointment and Performance of Defense Counsel in Death PenaltyCases: In accordance with professional norms, all persons who are or have been members of the defense team have a continuing duty to safeguard the interests of the client and should cooperate fully with successor counsel. This duty includes, but is not limited to: A. maintaining the records of the case in a manner that will inform successor counsel of all significant developments relevant to the litigation; B. providing the client’s files, as well as information regarding all aspects of the representation, to successor counsel; C. sharing potential further areas of legal and factual research with successor counsel; and D. cooperating with such professionally appropriate legal strategies as may be chosen by successor counsel. It is my hope that this article will demonstrate that these Guidelines reflect not just best practice, but actual ethical mandates that trial counsel, like Bryan Saunders, owe their former clients as those clients negotiate the jurisprudential maze known as habeas corpus.

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

Document(s)

Public Opinion on the Death Penalty in China: Results from a General Population Survey Conducted in Three Provinces in 2007/08

By Shenghui Qi / Dietrich Oberwittler / Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law, on 1 January 2008


2008

Article

China


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The present project is concerned with the significant role that public opinion plays in the debate surrounding the death penalty and criminal policy in the People’s Republic of China, including possible public reaction to any planned abolishment of the death penalty. How is public opinion on the death penalty exhibited in China? What influence does public opinion on the death penalty have on legislative and judicial practice in China? The principal goal of the project is to analyze the links that exist between public opinion, criminal policy, legislation and legal practice, and to initiate attitudinal changes amongst political and legal actors as well as the public at large. A further objective is to guide Chinese criminal law reform, particularly with regard to a possible reduction in the number of capital offences, against the background of the ratification of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

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

Document(s)

PROBING “LIFE QUALIFICATION” THROUGH EXPANDED VOIR DIRE

By John H. Blume / Sheri Lynn Johnson / Brian Threlkeld / Hofstra Law Review, on 1 January 2001


2001

Article

United States


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It turns out that voir dire in capital cases is woefully ineffective at the most elementary task—weeding out unqualified jurors.Empirical evidence reveals that many capital jurors are in fact unqualified to serve. Moreover, the ineffectiveness of the process is far from even-handed. A juror is not “death-qualified” if she would always vote against a death sentence, regardless of the circumstances, and a handful of the jurors who actually serve in capital cases are in fact unqualified for this reason.

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

Document(s)

JURY INSTRUCTIONS REGARDING DEADLOCK IN CAPITAL SENTENCING

By Laurie B. Berberich / Hofstra Law Review, on 1 January 2001


Article

United States


More details See the document

Questions regarding the jury’s inability to reach a unanimous decision are often asked of judges and similar uninformative responses are generally given. Is ignoringjuror concerns the proper method for handling jury inquiries about the result of juror non-unanimity in capital sentencing? Or should courts inform capital juries up-front of the consequences of their failure to reach a unanimous verdict?

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

Document(s)

Double Tragedies: Victims Speak Out Against the Death Penalty for People with Severe Mental Illness

By Susannah Sheffer / National Alliance on Mental Illness / Murder Victims' Families for Human Rights, on 1 January 2009


2009

NGO report


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This report asserts that the death penalty is not only inappropriate and unwarranted for persons with severe mental illness but that it also serves as a distraction from problems within the mental health system that contributed or even led directly to tragic violence. Families of murder victims and families of people with mental illness who have committed murder have a cascade of questions and needs. It is to these questions, rather than to the death penalty, that as a society we must turn our attention and our collective energies if we are truly to address the problem of untreated mental illness and the lethal violence that can result.

  • Document type NGO report
  • Themes list Mental Illness, Murder Victims' Families,

Document(s)

Mandatory Justice: Eighteen Reforms to the Death Penalty

By The Constitution Project, on 1 January 2001


2001

NGO report


More details See the document

One major goal of these recommendations is to create additional safeguards against the endemic tendency of decision-makers in the criminal justice system to “pass the buck.” The system is far too lax in catching errors and injustices in part because many of those who might catch these errors and injustices do not fully understand their own duty to ensure that a death sentence is the appropriate punishment. Several of these recommendations are addressed to those who occupy critical roles in the capital punishment system, including the defense attorney, the prosecutor, the jury, the trial judge, and the reviewing courts. They emphasize that each, individually, has the responsibility to ensure, to the best of his or her ability, that justice is done.

  • Document type NGO report
  • Themes list Networks,

Document(s)

THE JURY IN THE TWENTY – FIRST CENTURY: AN INTERDISCIPLINARY CONFERENCE

By William J. Bowers / Ursula Bentele / Brooklyn Law Review, on 8 September 2020


2020

Article

United States


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The first section below describes how, for many jurors, the decision about guilt appears to be so overwhelming that it prevents truly separate decision making about punishment. The second section focuses on the degree to which jurors feel constrained by what they view as a requirement to impose death if certain aggravating factors are present in the case. And finally, the third section explores the way in which mitigating evidence, even when it appears to have been extensive and credible, is ignored, devalued, or discredited.

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

Document(s)

Errors and Ethics: Dilemmas in Death

By Penny J. White / Hofstra Law Review, on 1 January 2001


2001

Article

United States


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In the last five years, the death penalty has become a frequent topic of discussion. While discussion of such an emotive topic is not unusual for any period in history, the tenor of the recent dialogue is unusual. For the most part, the discussion centers around the problems with capital punishment, particularly its inaccuracy and unfairness. This Article begins in Part II with a discussion of recent claims about the frequency of errors in capital cases. Part III enumerates and discusses the factors generally thought to be the cause of the errors. Part IV details new rules recently adopted in one jurisdiction in an effort to eliminate the errors. Part IV also suggests that these new rules, though worthwhile, are actually a reiteration of long-standing ethical obligations of judges and lawyers, the breach of which is responsible for many of the errors. Part V recommends additional remedies which the bench and the bar must take if there is a true commitment to providing a fair, just, and reliable system for determining who the government is entitled to kill.

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

Document(s)

The Innocence Protection Act of 2001

By Senator Patrick Leahy / Hofstra Law Review, on 1 January 2001


Article

United States


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The goal of our bill is simple, but profoundly important: to reduce the risk of mistaken executions. The Innocence Protection Act proposes basic, common-sense reforms to our criminal justice system that are designed to protect the innocent and to ensure that if the death penalty is imposed, it is the result of informed and reasoned deliberation, not politics, luck, bias, or guesswork. We have listened to a lot of good advice and made some refinements to the bill since the last Congress, but it is still structured around two principal reforms: improving the availability of DNA testing, and ensuring reasonable minimum standards and funding for court-appointed counsel.

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

Document(s)

Capital Punishment Briefing Paper

By Peter Hodgkinson / Lina Gyllensten / Diana Peel / Center for Capital Punishment Studies, on 1 January 2011


2011

NGO report


More details See the document

This briefing paper is offered as a critique of the received wisdom of abolition strategies against the background of an evidence based analysis of the literature. A point of interest to begin with is to try to tease out the motivation of individuals and groups that consider themselves death penalty abolitionists.

  • Document type NGO report
  • Themes list Networks,

Document(s)

Preventing the Execution of the Innocent: Testimony Before the House Judiciary Committee.

By Peter Neufeld / Hofstra Law Review, on 1 January 2001


2001

Article

United States


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There have been at least sixty-seven postconviction DNA exonerations in the United States. Our Innocence Project at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law has either assisted or been the attorney of record in thirty-nine of those cases, including eight men who served time on death row. For all of these men, existing appellate remedies failed to catch the mistakes and correct the injustice. In one third of the exonerations, bad lawyering contributed to their convictions yet in only one case was ineffective assistance of counsel recognized by an appellate court. Mistaken eyewitness identification was a critical factor in almost 90% of the unjust convictions yet not a single trial or appellate court found the eyewitness testimony to be unreliable.

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