International Death Penalty
Encourage Worldwide Abolition
International death penalty trends are unmistakably towards abolition. Use of the death penalty worldwide has continued to shrink, and use of the death penalty has also been increasingly curtailed in international law. Since 1990, an average of three countries each year have abolished the death penalty, and today over two-thirds of the world's nations have ended capital punishment in law or practice.
» The death penalty and international human rights standards
» The death penalty worldwide in numbers
» International Death Penalty Statistics 2008
"The abolition of the death penalty is making us a civilized society. It shows we actually do mean business when we say we have reverence for life."
- Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
- Hanging by a thread: Mental health and the death penalty in Japan
The government of Japan continues to execute prisoners who are mentally ill, according to a new Amnesty International report. The report calls on the government of Japan to establish a moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty. It also urges the government of Japan to review all cases where mental illness may be a relevant factor, to ensure that prisoners with mental illness are not executed and to improve conditions for prisoners so that prisoners will not suffer declining mental health or the development of serious mental illness.
» Read the press release
» Read the report "Hanging by a thread: Mental health and the death penalty in Japan"- A thousand people face the death penalty in Iraq
Iraq now has one of the highest rates of execution in the world. At least 1,000 people are believed to be under sentence of death, 150 of whom have exhausted all legal remedies available to them and are therefore at serious risk of being hanged. In this document, which includes case studies, Amnesty International calls on the Iraqi authorities to halt all executions, to commute all pending death sentences and to ensure that trials meet with international standards.
» Read the report "A thousand people face the death penalty in Iraq"
- Call for International Standards
On December 18, 2007, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution which called for all states that still maintain the death penalty to establish a moratorium on executions with a view to abolish the death penalty. 104 nations voted in favor while only 54 voted against this historic resolution.
- Stop Child Executions!
International law prohibits the use of the death penalty for crimes committed by people younger than 18, yet the execution of child offenders continues in a few countries, particularly Iran, where 7 were put to death in 2007, and 8 in 2008. Some juvenile offenders also currently face possible execution in Saudi Arabia. As a step towards the total abolition of the death penalty around the world, Amnesty International is calling for:
- An immediate end to all executions of child offenders.
- All existing death sentences against child offenders to be commuted.
- All countries that retain the death penalty to ensure that its use against child offenders is precluded by law.
- Such countries to take measures to ensure that their courts do not sentence child offenders to death, including, where necessary, the examination of birth certificates. Where systems of issuing birth certificates do not exist, such systems should be introduced, as required under Article 8 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
» Condemn the execution of Behnoud Shojaee and stop the execution of Safar Angooti in Iran
» Stop the execution of juvenile offender Hossein Haghi in Iran
» Delara Darabi Executed in Iran
» Two Juvenile Executions Are "Deplorable Additions to Grim Tally" in Saudi Arabia
» Juveniles still to face the noose in Iran
