INDEX

This report, by Dr Amelia Inglis, challenges the argument that the death penalty serves the needs of victims of crime and their families. Her research asks: How are victims and their families impacted by the death penalty? How and why might their views on capital punishment change over time? The author’s original empirical research finds that the death penalty can in fact retraumatise victims and suggests their perspectives on capital punishment are not universally shared or static.

• Document type NGO report

This report marks the 40th anniversary of the adoption of the ‘abolitionist de facto’ (ADF) category in the UN’s quinquennial reports on the death penalty. Today, 42 states fall under the category of ADF – countries where no executions have taken place for at least a decade, but where the death penalty remains in law. Though an absence of executions must be commended, many ADF states still impose death sentences and, ultimately, sustain the legal infrastructure of capital punishment, with all the risks and harms this entails.

• Document type NGO report

The report shows that wrongful death-penalty convictions in the United States are often the result of systemic racism, human error and official misconduct — including false testimony, unreliable forensics, and biased jury selection — disproportionately affecting Black and other marginalized defendants.

• Document type NGO report

“Forgotten Service, Lasting Wounds” shows how many U.S. military veterans who end up on death row carry serious, untreated service-related trauma—such as PTSD or brain injuries—that is rarely presented to juries during sentencing.
The report highlights a clear “battlefield-to-prison” pipeline and argues that veterans’ backgrounds and mental health histories must be meaningfully considered in capital cases.

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Fair Trial

The report reviews death penalty developments in 20 retentionist Asian countries between 2020 and mid-2025.

• Document type NGO report

Twenty years after Roper v. Simmons ended the juvenile death penalty, new scientific and societal insights challenge the age-18 cutoff. This report introduces new DPI analysis of the trends in sentencing and executions of defendants age 18 to 20 based on twenty years of data, from the time of the Roper decision on March 1, 2005 through the end of 2024.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Clemency / Death Row Conditions / Drug Offenses / Innocence / Intellectual Disability / Juveniles / Mental Illness / Trend Towards Abolition

In this submission in support of the Pan African Lawyers Union, the amici explain that the death penalty per se is an arbitrary deprivation of life, in violation of Article 4 of the African Charter, because the weight of the evidence shows that the death penalty is not necessary to achieve the stated purpose of reducing crime and as a penalty implicating human rights under the Charter it is disproportionate to the benefits it seeks to capture.

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment and Punishment / Drug Offenses / Fair Trial / Gender / Legal Representation / Moratorium / Murder Victims' Families / Terrorism / Trend Towards Abolition / Women

This report covers the judicial use of the death penalty for the period January to December 2024. Amnesty International’s monitoring shows an increase by 32% in recorded executions compared to 2023. This does not include the thousands of people believed to have been executed in China, as well as in North Korea and Viet Nam, also believed to have resorted to executions extensively. For the second consecutive year, executing countries reached the lowest number on record.

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Clemency / Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment and Punishment / Gender / Innocence / Intellectual Disability / Mental Illness / Moratorium / Terrorism / Trend Towards Abolition / Women
• Available languages أحكام وعمليات الإعدام2024 فيCondenas a muerte y ejecuciones 2024مجازات اعدام در خاورمیانه و آفریقای شمالی ۲۰۲۴Condamnations à mort et exécutions 2024

The report exposes how laws and policies disproportionately criminalise women due to their socio-economic status and vulnerabilities, and calls for urgent reforms to stop the criminalisation of women for poverty, survival strategies and gendered norms.

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Death Row Conditions / Drug Offenses / Fair Trial / Gender / Intellectual Disability / Legal Representation / Mental Illness / Murder Victims' Families / Trend Towards Abolition / Women

The 2024 Report of the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty presents an overview of actions against capital punishment under the theme “The death penalty protects no one”. The report adopts a concise format, offering a clear and impactfuloverview of the mobilizations.

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Public Opinion / Trend Towards Abolition
• Available languages Journée mondiale contre la peine de mort - Rapport 2024