Amnesty International Global Report: Executions Worldwide Fewest in a Decade, Death Sentences Fall More Than One Third in 2020

Fewer exe­cu­tions were car­ried out across the world in 2020 than at any time in a decade and new death sen­tences fell by more than a third, accord­ing to a new report by Amnesty International. It was the third con­sec­u­tive year in which con­firmed exe­cu­tions reached a 10-year low, and the sixth year in a row in which con­firmed exe­cu­tions declined, Amnesty said.

The human rights organization’s report, Global Report: Death Sentences and Executions 2020, released April 21, 2021, said that Amnesty had record­ed 483 exe­cu­tions in 18 coun­tries in 2020, down 26.5% from the 657 con­firmed exe­cu­tions car­ried out in 20 coun­tries in 2019. Confirmed exe­cu­tions were 70.6% below the 1,634 exe­cu­tions record­ed in 2015.

While exe­cu­tions declined in most of the world, they more than tripled in Egypt from at least 32 in 2019 to at least 107 last year. Executions decreased 85.3% in Saudi Arabia, falling from 184 to 27. They fell by more than half in Iraq, from 100 to 45. The United States car­ried out 17 exe­cu­tions in 2020, the sixth most of any nation, behind China (esti­mat­ed in the thou­sands), Iran (246+), Egypt (107+), Iraq (45+) and Saudi Arabia (27). The U.S. was once again the only coun­try in the Western hemi­sphere to car­ry out executions.

China, North Korea, and Vietnam con­sid­er exe­cu­tions and death sen­tences to be state secrets and pre­vent accu­rate inde­pen­dent mon­i­tor­ing. As a result, they are not includ­ed in Amnesty International’s fig­ures for con­firmed exe­cu­tions and death sentences. 

Criticisms of United States Human Rights Violations

Amnesty crit­i­cized Egypt, China, and the U.S. fed­er­al gov­ern­ment for accel­er­at­ing exe­cu­tions dur­ing the pan­dem­ic. ​“Against the back­drop of a world par­a­lyzed by the pan­dem­ic, the dis­turb­ing deter­mi­na­tion of offi­cials in some coun­tries to cir­cum­vent health mea­sures and relent­less­ly pur­sue exe­cu­tions and death sen­tences added an addi­tion­al lay­er of cru­el­ty to their use of the death penal­ty and made the case for its abo­li­tion ever more urgent,” the report said. 

Restriction on access to in-per­son legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion and the ​“absolute­ly avoid­able” health risks caused by ​“pur­su­ing exe­cu­tions in the mid­dle of a pan­dem­ic” made the use of the death penal­ty ​“a par­tic­u­lar­ly egre­gious assault on human rights,” Amnesty International Secretary General Agnès Callamard said. 

Callamard also crit­i­cized the con­duct of U.S. fed­er­al offi­cials dur­ing the government’s 2020 exe­cu­tion spree. In a com­men­tary in TIME mag­a­zine, she wrote that the U.S. had ​“severe­ly cur­tailed pris­on­ers’ abil­i­ty to seek help” to redress inad­e­quate legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion and oth­er tri­al and appel­late defects that vio­lat­ed inter­na­tion­al law. ​“In sev­er­al cas­es in the U.S.,” she wrote, ​“fed­er­al author­i­ties exe­cut­ed peo­ple by lethal injec­tion after the orig­i­nal death war­rant had expired, even though motions were still pend­ing before the courts.” This, she said, vio­lat­ed ​“the crit­i­cal safe­guard under inter­na­tion­al law requir­ing states not to pro­ceed with exe­cu­tion if appeals are pending.”

Declining Death Sentences and Support for the Death Penalty Worldwide

Fifty-four coun­tries imposed death sen­tences in 2020, accord­ing to the glob­al report, two few­er than in 2019. Amnesty con­firmed that at least 1,477 death sen­tences were imposed world­wide, down 35.9% from the 2,307 con­firmed death sen­tences imposed in 2019. Amnesty attrib­uted part of the decline to ​“dis­rup­tions and delays in crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings across the world” caused by the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. However, the report cau­tioned that “[v]ariations in the nature and avail­abil­i­ty of infor­ma­tion on death sen­tences for some coun­tries con­tin­ued to affect [its] assess­ment and abil­i­ty to accu­rate­ly com­pare trends by coun­try.” At least 20 coun­tries imposed more death sen­tences than the United States did in 2020, and giv­en the absence of infor­ma­tion from which to con­firm death sen­tences in some coun­tries, the num­ber is likely higher.

Globally, Amnesty International report­ed that at least 28,567 peo­ple were known to be under sen­tence of death. Nine coun­tries had con­firmed death rows of more than one thou­sand pris­on­ers: Iraq (7.900+), Pakistan (4,000+), Nigeria (2,700+), USA (2,485), Bangladesh (1,800+), Malaysia (1,314+), Vietnam (1,200+), Kenya (1,000+), Sri Lanka (1,000+). However, data was not avail­able to esti­mate the size of large death rows in China, Egypt, Iran, North Korea, and Saudi Arabia. 

Amnesty report­ed that sev­er­al more coun­tries moved towards death penal­ty abo­li­tion in 2020, with Chad abol­ish­ing the death penal­ty for all crimes and Kazakhstan sign­ing the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aim­ing at the abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty. The report not­ed that Colorado became the 22^nd U.S. state to abol­ish cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, Barbados repealed its law that had pro­vid­ed for manda­to­ry death sen­tences, and Sudan abol­ished the use of the death penal­ty for apos­ta­sy. Saudi Arabia issued a state­ment say­ing it would reduce its use of the death penal­ty against peo­ple charged with offens­es com­mit­ted when they were younger than age 18.

In December 2020, a record 123 nations in the United Nations General Assembly vot­ed in favor of a res­o­lu­tion call­ing for a world­wide mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions. At the end of the year, Amnesty said, 108 of the world’s coun­tries had abol­ished the death penal­ty in law for all crimes and 144 coun­tries had abol­ished the death penal­ty in law or practice.

Amnesty report­ed that 18 peo­ple who had been wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death were exon­er­at­ed in 2020. The most were exon­er­at­ed in the United States and Zambia, with six each. Exonerations also were record­ed in Cameroon (3), China (1), Singapore (1), and Taiwan (1).