Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is a government-sanctioned practice whereby a

person is killed by the state as a punishment for a crime. The sentence that someone be punished in
such a manner is referred to as a death sentence, whereas the act of carrying out the sentence is known
as an execution.

Every day, people are executed and sentenced to death by the state as punishment for a variety of
crimes – sometimes for acts that should not be criminalized. In some countries, it can be for drug-related
offences, in others it is reserved for terrorism-related acts and murder.

Some countries execute people who were under 18 years old when the crime was committed, others use
the death penalty against people with mental and intellectual disabilities and several others apply the
death penalty after unfair trials – in clear violation of international law and standards. People can spend
years on death row, not knowing when their time is up, or whether they will see their families one last
time.

The death penalty is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment. Amnesty opposes the
death penalty in all cases without exception - regardless of who is accused, the nature or circumstances
of the crime, guilt or innocence or method of execution.

Amnesty International holds that the death penalty breaches human rights, in particular the right to life
and the right to live free from torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Both
rights are protected under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the UN in 1948.

Over time, the international community has adopted several instruments that ban the use of the death
penalty, including the following:

• The Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aiming at the
abolition of the death penalty.

• Protocol No. 6 to the European Convention on Human Rights, concerning the abolition of the death
penalty, and Protocol No. 13 to the European Convention on Human Rights, concerning the abolition of
the death penalty in all circumstances.

• The Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights to Abolish the Death Penalty.

Although international law says that the use of the death penalty must be restricted to the the most
serious crimes, meaning intentional killing, Amnesty believes that the death penalty is never the answer.
The death penalty is a symptom of a culture of violence, not a solution to it.

Execution Methods

• Beheading

• Electrocution

• Hanging

• Lethal injection

• Shooting

Juvenile Executions

The use of the death penalty for crimes committed by people younger than 18 is prohibited under
international human rights law, yet some countries still sentence to death and execute juvenile
defendants. Such executions are few compared to the total number of executions recorded by Amnesty
International each year.

However, their significance goes beyond their number and calls into question the commitment of the
executing states to respect international law.

Since 1990 Amnesty International has documented 145 executions of child offenders in 10 countries:
China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, South Sudan, Sudan, the
USA and Yemen.

Several of these countries have changed their laws to exclude the practice. Iran has executed more than
twice as many child offenders as the other nine countries combined. At the time of writing Iran has
executed at least 97 child offenders since 1990.

Where do most executions take place?

In 2018, most known executions took place in China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Viet Nam and Iraq – in that
order.
China remains the world’s top executioner – but the true extent of the use of the death penalty in China
is unknown as this data is classified as a state secret; the global figure of at least 690 recorded in 2018
excludes the thousands of executions believed to have been carried out in China.

Excluding China, 78% of all reported executions took place in just four countries – Iran, Saudi Arabia, Viet
Nam and Iraq.

Executions per year

Amnesty International recorded at least 690 executions in 20 countries in 2018, down by 31% from 2017
(at least 993 executions). This figure represents the lowest number of executions that Amnesty
International has recorded in the past decade.

Death sentences per year

Amnesty International recorded at least 2,531 death sentences in 54 countries in 2018, a slight decrease
from the total of 2,591 reported in 2017. At least 19,336 people were known to be under sentence of
death globally at the end of 2018.

Reasons to abolish the death penalty

It is irreversible and mistakes happen. Execution is the ultimate, irrevocable punishment: the risk of
executing an innocent person can never be eliminated. Since 1973, for example, more than 160 prisoners
sent to death row in the USA have later been exonerated or released from death row on grounds of
innocence. Others have been executed despite serious doubts about their guilt.

It does not deter crime. Countries who execute commonly cite the death penalty as a way to deter
people from committing crime. This claim has been repeatedly discredited, and there is no evidence that
the death penalty is any more effective in reducing crime than life imprisonment.

It is often used within skewed justice systems. In many cases recorded by Amnesty International, people
were executed after being convicted in grossly unfair trials, on the basis of torture-tainted evidence and
with inadequate legal representation. In some countries death sentences are imposed as the mandatory
punishment for certain offences, meaning that judges are not able to consider the circumstances of the
crime or of the defendant before sentencing.

It is discriminatory. The weight of the death penalty is disproportionally carried by those with less
advantaged socio-economic backgrounds or belonging to a racial, ethnic or religious minority. This
includes having limited access to legal representation, for example, or being at greater disadvantage in
their experience of the criminal justice system.

It is used as a political tool. The authorities in some countries, for example Iran and Sudan, use the death
penalty to punish political opponents.

What is Amnesty doing to abolish the death penalty?

For 40 years, Amnesty has been campaigning to abolish the death penalty around the world.

Amnesty monitors its use by all states to expose and hold to account governments that continue to use
the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment. We publish a report annually, reporting figures
and analysing trends for each country. Amnesty's latest report, Death Sentences and Executions 2018,
was released in April 2019.

The organisation's work to oppose the death penalty takes many forms, including targeted, advocacy and
campaign based projects in the Africa, Asia-Pacific, Americas and Europe and Central Asia region;
strengthening national and international standards against its use, including by supporting the successful
adoption of resolutions on a moratorium on the use of the death penalty by the UN General Assembly;
and applying pressure on cases that face imminent execution. We also support actions and work by the
abolitionist movement, at national, regional and global level.

When Amnesty started its work in 1977, only 16 countries had totally abolished the death penalty.
Today, that number has risen to 106 - more than half the world's countries. More than two-thirds are
abolitionist in law or practice..