INDEX

According to the Saudi Human Rights Commission, the death sentence issued against Ali al-Nimr, Dawoud al-Marhoun and Abdullah al-Zaher will be reviewed in accordance with reforms decreed in the Kingdom in April on juvenile criminal justice.

Sudan repealed the death penalty for homosexuality and apostasy

On 28 April 2020, the Chadian National Assembly unanimously voted to abolish the death penalty for crimes of terrorism.

On March 23 2020, the Governor of the State of Colorado, Jared Polis, signed legislation abolishing the death penalty. The bill SB20-100 had passed the Senate by a 19-13 vote on January 30 and the House by a 38-27 vote on February 26. He also commuted the sentences of the three people on death row […]

Following the United Nations Treaty Event in New York, two more states have committed to irreversible abolition of the death penalty by signing and ratifying the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty (OP2-ICCPR). The Protocol was highlighted by the United Nations […]

On 30 May 2019, the NH state Senate voted to override the governor’s veto. The death penalty repeal took effect immediately.

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.

On 11 October 2018, Washington became the 20th US state to abolish the death penalty: the court ruling, written by Chief Justice Mary E. Fairhurst, cited the “arbitrary and racially biased manner” in which the death penalty was applied as a violation of the state’s constitutional prohibition of “cruel punishment”.

On 28 September 2018, during the UN Treaty Event in New York, Gambia ratified the Second Optional Protocol to the ICCPR, aiming at the irreversible abolition of the death penalty, alongside the Convention Against Torture.