In 1988, a United Nations report by the late Prof. Roger Hood from Oxford University stated, "'In many regions of the world there is little sign that [death penalty] abolition will occur soon." How wrong he was! The death penalty in the world today looks far different than in 1988. What has changed? What are the reasons for this change?

 Reading, 

The death penalty is in universal and seemingly irreversible decline everywhere in the world. Every year, more and more countries abolished capital punishment in their laws, more and more countries remove more death-eligible offenses from their books, and more and more countries execute fewer people than they did the year prior. The United States is one of them. Every year, fewer juries in our country sentence people to death. Every year we execute fewer people. In the last year there were fewer than 25, and there was slated to be even fewer this year. There are very few human rights issues that have seen as much progress, and as consistent global progress over the last 50 years, as the contraction and abolition of capital punishment. We may assume the death penalty will hardly exist a decade from now, and will be universally abolished in 20 years. That's if we can assume that the pace of abolition will be as consistent as it is now, and perhaps that assumption isn't correct, but it seems as though expectations are changing, that as the public gets used to fewer and fewer executions, then public opinion on the issue will start to change. We saw this happen in Europe, where even long after abolition, public majority still supported the death penalty. It's only been in recent decades that European opinion has caught up. Nonetheless, there's some variation in the speed with which different regions and different countries of the world are moving towards abolition. In this presentation, we'll look at a few of those trends. The death penalty is in world historical decline everywhere. 

Although the last few years have seen some aberrations, countries that are executing at a very high rate because of their domestic circumstances. Those include Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Pakistan. We may expect that the drug trafficking reforms in Iran will have an effect at reducing the number of executions in that country, and Pakistan seems to be slowing down, that it has been executing at high rates because of the threat of terrorism, that quite frankly, the death penalty is one of the few things the government can control, and it wants to use the death penalty in order to instill fear in terrorists, and remind people that it's in charge. Generally speaking, once the death penalty is abolished, it's never reinstated. There are only a handful of exceptions to that. The Philippines has abolished, and reinstated, and abolished again. There are calls by President Duterte to reinstate, but the Philippines hasn't made any real progress towards that goal yet. The map shows the extent of death penalty abolition around the world. In blue, the countries in blue are abolitionists for all crimes. The countries in green are abolitionist except for the very most extraordinary crimes, like genocide, or war crimes, or treason. So the death penalty is functionally abolished in those countries. Countries and brown are countries where the death penalty is on the books, but has not been used in at least 10 years, signifying that there is an unofficial policy against carrying out executions. We notice that much of sub-Saharan Africa is in that category. Finally, countries in red, are countries that profess a commitment to lawful capital punishment, and that have carried out an execution the last 10 years. We call these countries retentionists. In 2014, the UN General Assembly voted for a moratorium calling for an end to executions. That moratorium vote had 117 countries in favor, '37 opposed, and 34 abstentions. In 2016-- and the vote is every two years, in 2016 that number ticked up even a little bit higher to about 120. The United States votes no, as does China, India, Japan Saudi Arabia, Iran, North Korea, other countries that execute frequently. Many of those abstentions are in the postcolonial world, like sub-Saharan Africa, and countries fall from opposing to abstention every cycle. This reflects at least some political consensus, an emerging political consensus against capital punishment, but will those major countries, the US, China, India, Japan, turn away from the death penalty in coming years? 

We'll find out. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which dates from 1966, and therefore, is about 50 years old, lays out ground rules for carrying out the death penalty in its right to life provision. The second optional protocol of the ICCPR aims at total abolition of the death penalty. About 80 countries have ratified the second optional protocol. In the Council of Europe, the death penalty is universally abolished in all 47 member states, that protocol 6 and 13 of the European Convention on Human Rights abolish the death penalty, even in times of war or national emergency. In the Americas, the American Convention on Human Rights also restricts the death penalty in a similar manner to the ICCPR. The second optional protocol, known as the Asuncion Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights, also abolishes the death penalty. It's been fairly well widely ratified by Spanish and Portuguese speaking Latin America. The major holdouts to death penalty abolition in the Americas, besides the United States, of course, are the English speaking Caribbean countries. Countries like Barbados, Jamaica, Trinidad, and Tobago, Belize. According to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, as it's been interpreted in its modern iterations that the UN Human Rights Committee has been expanding this text to reflect state practice in their draft general comments of the right to life. According to the Human Rights Committee, public executions violate international law, as does the mandatory death penalty. The death penalty cannot be the only sentence available in law. In addition, the ICCPR and the American Convention on Human Rights, restrict the death penalty to only the most serious crimes. There is now an emerging global consensus that that means premeditated murder only. That it does not mean drug trafficking. That's important, because as we'll mentioned again, most of the world's executions are for drug trafficking, not for murder, with the caveat that we can't know China's aggregate numbers. Under the ICCPR, you have the right to seek clemency, or a pardon from the executive. In the Islamic world, that could be the right to seek a victim's pardon. 

Methods of execution cannot cause unnecessary pain. As we'll see, about 60 countries still have hanging on the books, 30 have firing squad or a shot by a single shooter, nine have stoning, which though it's on the books at a number of countries as a Hudud punishment under Islamic law, it's not used very commonly. Only six of lethal injection, but most of the people worldwide are executed via lethal injection, because that's what China uses, and China executes more than the rest of the world combined. Beheading is still on the books in five countries. Only the United States still has electrocution and asphyxiating gas on the books. However, we in the United States have struggled with whether lethal injection drugs, which are untested and are being used by corrections facilities against their label, their pharmaceutical labels, and over the protests of pharmaceutical companies that manufacture them, we in the US are struggling with how much pain should we tolerate by these untested lethal injection drugs. Much of the world has concluded that undue delay on death row can cause mental torture. The US Supreme Court has never held that, although justice Stephen Breyer has vigorously dissented a number of times believing that undue delay on death row could render a death sentence unconstitutional because of the mental torture that it causes a prisoner. Under international, law racial disparities and wrongful convictions are unlawful. We'll add to that if there is a disproportionate number of foreign nationals on death row, especially in a country like Singapore, or Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand. That is particularly a manifestation of the death penalty for drug trafficking, because the death penalty for drug trafficking is most likely to ensnare foreign nationals. The international law prohibits the death penalty for juveniles, persons with mental illness, and pregnant women, and recognizes right to legal aid, and consular assistance for foreign nationals on death row. Why do some countries abolish death penalty and some countries retain it? 

Well, it seems as though the level of democratization and death penalty abolition seem correlated, that most democratic countries have abolished the death penalty, especially in the Council of Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand. But there are still other respectable democracies among them, Japan, and India, and, of course, the United States, that still retain the death penalty. I'll make the caveat that the United States doesn't really have one death penalty. It's got 50, or 51 with the federal system, and 52 with the military system. Therefore, the United States is actually hard to generalize about. In reality, every year fewer and fewer states impose death sentences, and even fewer carry out executions. The state of Virginia is a good example. Virginia used to be the second or third highest among the US states. And today, the number of executions is now at a trickle, and we went an entire year without any new death sentences in the state of Virginia. So even here in the US, the death penalty is being restricted to an ever shrinking area, primarily in The South. Economic development and abolition also seem correlated, but there are still industrialized nations that retain it. Among them, Japan and Singapore. In addition, there are underdeveloped nations, such as in Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa, that do not retain the death penalty. Why? Is the answer something cultural? Is there something culturally ingrained about the death penalty? Could it be American exceptionalism, the belief that international law doesn't apply to us, and we don't care about international trends? Could it be Asian values. The former president of Singapore was very fond of using this argument, that there is something different about China-- countries like China and Singapore, where you favor the collective over the individual, for instance. Does that explain it? Why does the Islamic world largely retain the death penalty in law and practice, that most of the countries in the world that still use capital punishment are majority Islamic. Why? On the other hand, there are no countries of the world that have a Roman Catholic majority that still carry out executions. Why is Roman Catholicism so closely correlated to death penalty abolition? 

Certainly, the Catholic Church has an unhappy history of the use of the death penalty in its own history, what has changed? What about where the death penalty is a colonial import, like in sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean, where it's a product of the European law that was imposed on that country? Is it easier to abolish in that circumstance? But culture cannot explain everything. Singapore and Hong Kong are two of the most similar jurisdictions that it's possible to find in the world. They have Hong Kong has a slightly larger population, and is slightly more homogeneous, but they are similar in rates of wealth and GDP, similar in population density, very similar in crime rates. Why does Singapore maintain a commitment to capital punishment and Hong Kong abolished more than 20 years ago? It could be that Hong Kong is much more sensitive about democracy and democratization give it its own history as a British colony that was reunited with China in 1997, and the fear that, perhaps, that China could misuse the death penalty in Hong Kong. Botswana and Namibia, to countries that have a lot of similarities in terms of GDP levels, transparency levels, demographics. Botswana retains the death penalty and uses it relatively frequently. Namibia has abolished the death penalty in its constitution, and forbids any executions from happening in Namibia. Again, that may be a product of history. Botswana has been a consistent democracy since independence. It's never faced one party rule or military dictatorship. Namibia, by contrast, was an apartheid state. It was a colony of South Africa under apartheid until it got its independence in 1989. Maybe that helps explain it. What about South Korea and Japan? South Korea has not carried out executions in about a decade and doesn't look like it will carry out more anytime soon. Whereas Japan carries out executions fairly regularly. South Korea and Japan, in many ways, are engaged in a competition. South Korea perceives itself as the more progressive version of Japan. If South Korea abolishes, that will likely put a lot of pressure on Japan. We've talked about the International Criminal Court already. South Korea was a member of the like minded group, and was an early supporter of International Criminal Court. 

That put a lot of pressure on Japan to ratify. And Japan finally did a little bit later. In the Western hemisphere, only the United States still uses capital punishment. However, the death penalty remains on the books primarily in the English speaking Caribbean countries, like Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad, and Tobago, Bahamas, Guyana. There's been only one execution outside of the United States in the last 20 years, and that was Saint Kitts and Nevis in 2008, although Saint Kitts and Nevis did it on lawfully. In Europe, there's only one country that still executes. That's Belarus, which is not a member of the Council of Europe. And Belarus went a few years without an execution, but has recently passed more death sentences. In Australia and the Pacific, the death penalty is almost completely abolished. The death penalty remains on the books in Fiji and Papua New Guinea, but there's been no executions in over 20 years. In south-east Asia, by contrast, executions are much more common, but they've undergone a steep decline. 20 years ago, Singapore led the world in executions, especially for drug traffickers, more than 300 per year. Today, Singapore executes maybe one or two people a year. Drug trafficking by far is the most common reason for executions in south-east Asia, especially in Malaysia and Singapore, where it's mandatory based on the quantity thresholds of drugs that are being trafficked. It's much rarer that the death penalty would be used for murder. On the Indian subcontinent, India executes very rarely. We'll look at it in more detail. India executes about once every 5 or 10 years. For a country of 1.3 billion people, that is not common. Bangladesh executes a little bit more frequently, perhaps four or five per year, and it's been focused on putting on trial its-- well, the suspected war criminals from the 1971 War of Independence with Pakistan. There's a little movement towards abolition in this region, but there also aren't that many executions. East Asia is a different story. China leads the world in executions. In fact, China executes more than the rest of the world combined. 

There's probably about 1,000 executions every year outside of China, and our best guess is maybe 1,600 in China every year, but that's down from 20,000 people per year in China 20 years ago, that the rate of executions in China has dropped astronomically, even though it still executes more than the rest of the world combined. Now, China does make public information about its executions. It wants the deterrence value of revealing to the media that it's carrying out executions, but the aggregate number is a state secret. Therefore, we can't really know how many people are executed in China every year. Our best guesses about say probably between 1,600 and 2,000 every year at this point. But again, that's down from about 20,000 back in 2,000. The Islamic world has considerable variation. Generally speaking, most Islamic countries are active executioners, except when they've been, one, colonized by a Roman Catholic country, such as France. This is why the death penalty is generally not used in Morocco, Algeria or Tunisia, for instance. Turkey and the Islamic countries of southeastern Europe and the Caucasus, have abolished the death penalty in order to join the Council of Europe, countries like Azerbaijan, Bosnia, Albania. The death penalty has been abolished. in all of these countries. 

Finally, the death penalty is generally not used in Central Asia, countries like Kazakhstan or Tajikistan, and that's because of the abuses of the Soviet Era. I'll also mention two other outliers, Israel and Palestine. Israel has only ever carried out one execution in its entire history, and that was Adolf Eichmann in 1961. Adolf Eichmann was personally responsible for the deaths of probably 1.2 million Jews. Besides that, what is real is afraid of, is that it would execute a terrorist and then be the victim of a retaliatory attack. That if it executes a Palestinian terrorist, that guarantees maybe a bus bombing in Tel Aviv the next day. And if Israel can't execute terrorists, why would it execute ordinary murderers. It's afraid of being caught in a cycle of violence. The West Bank is on the verge of death penalty abolition, and that's because, essentially, the European Union donor money is propping up that government. So we could see the death penalty abolished in the West Bank very soon. The Gaza Strip is a whole different story. In the Gaza Strip, you can be executed even for something like collaboration with the state of Israel. Why? Because the government of the Gaza Strip, the Hamas government of the Gaza Strip is concerned that if it didn't carry out executions that vigilante groups will assassinate people anyway, and it's trying to put people on trial and give them some semblance of lawfulness and legal order in order to prevent the vigilante killings. Africa is much harder to generalize about. Executions are very rare across sub-Saharan Africa. In fact, if you exclude Egypt, Libya, Somalia, and Sudan, there's maybe only one execution per year in all of sub-Saharan Africa combined. Yet, death sentences are very common, and death rows are very large. This is because the death penalty is mandatory in a lot of former British colonies, like Nigeria, for murder and other crimes. In Kenya, the death penalty is even mandatory for robbery. That means that Kenya has a huge death row, but Kenya hasn't carried out an execution in 30 years, and likely never will again. The death penalty has been abolished, generally speaking, throughout French and Portuguese speaking Africa. It's retained only in common law English speaking Africa, because it's an import from British colonial rule. Although the European Convention on Human Rights permitted retention of the death penalty, European countries abolished between the 1960s and the 1980s. 

But they didn't always abolish all at once. Ireland, for instance, abolished for murder in 1954. It didn't abolish for political crimes, like terrorism or treason, until 1990. The UK abolished for all crimes except piracy, treason, and military offenses in 1965. It didn't abolish the rest until 1998. So it may take time to go from total retention to total abolition. Protocol 6 to the European Convention Human Rights abolishes the death penalty except in times of war or national emergency. Since 1994, abolition of the death penalty is an absolute precondition to join the Council of Europe and to join the European Union. Therefore, all those former Soviet Bloc nations in Eastern Europe, and Russia, and the Caucasus that have joined since then must abolish the death penalty or they cannot be considered for membership. You saw progressive abolition across from Western Europe eastward beginning with West Germany, UK, France, Belgium, and Turkey. In many cases, these that abolition occurred when a center left government took office, and sometimes like in France, the conservative government just held on longer. There is that exception for war or national emergency under Protocol 6 is abolished by Protocol 13. 

Protocol 13 was ratified by all council of Europe members, except for Russia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia. Protocol 13 abolished the death penalty full stop in all circumstances. Today, the European Court of Human Rights has imposed Protocol 13 on Russia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia. So Protocol 13 and Protocol 6 no longer need to be ratified, that the European Court of Human Rights has full stop abolished the death penalty in the entire council of Europe. Abolition today is seen as part of European identity. Europe perceives itself as a death penalty free zone, even though, of course, the death penalty in European history is quite ghastly. And that conversion has been very recent. Even France was still carrying out executions 40 years ago. Europe has constructed this narrative that as a country evolves, and develops, and becomes more civilized, abolishing the death penalty is a natural consequence of that. Europe perceives the death penalty as barbaric or uncivilized, even though, of course, Europe is responsible for more mass killing than anywhere else in the world in history. The abolition of capital punishment globally is an important plank in the common European foreign policy. EU and council of Europe officials, as well as members of European based NGOs routinely visit death rows and provide legal assistance to European nationals and others on death row. Europe is home to a strong network of well-organized anti-death penalty organizations, Amnesty International based in London, Hands Off Cain in Saint' Egidio in Rome, FIDH, International Federation for Human Rights in Paris, and Reprieve, also in London. In fact, Europe is the home to the largest abolitionist organization, which is the Roman Catholic church. No organization spends as much on global death penalty abolition as the Catholic church. 

Now, like Europe generally, that it really has only been in the last 30 or 40 years that the Catholic Church has taken such a strong position against capital punishment, that, in fact, the Vatican itself had the death penalty on the books until 1965, that the last three or four popes, especially John Paul II, took death penalty abolition very personally, and that has helped drive the Catholic church agenda on this topic. European embassy officials around the world routinely lodge official protests when an execution occurs as a matter of course, and they commemorate World Day Against the Death Penalty in all retentionists countries, including here. European media extensively covers the death penalty in the United States, that when in execution occurs here, for instance, it's major news in Europe. It's not even major news here. That's caused considerable tension with both the Clinton and Bush administrations because Bill Clinton and George W Bush were very strong philosophical defenders of the death penalty. 

The European Union spends about $5 million each year to promote death penalty abolition in the United States. In addition, no council of Europe member, or EU member, is allowed to extradite a prisoner who could face the death penalty in another country without assurances that the death penalty or life without parole would not be sought. That's because the European Convention on Human Rights and the European Charter of Fundamental Freedoms views the death penalty, and life without parole, and actually solitary confinement, as forms of torture and cruel and degrading punishment. Finally, there is a European Union embargo on the sale of lethal injection drugs to corrections facilities. This affects Lundbeck and Denmark, which produced pentobarbital, and Pfizer in Switzerland, which produce sodium thiopental and some others, that no country in the European Union can allow the export of drugs for lethal injection purposes. That makes lethal injection drugs here in the United States much more difficult to come by, and has helped contribute to the lethal injection crisis here in the US.

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