Amnesty International Reports Concentrated Spikes in Executions Amidst Continuing Trend Towards Global Death Penalty Abolition

Amnesty International report­ed that world­wide exe­cu­tions spiked by 54% to at least 1,634 — a 25-year high — in 2015, even as the num­ber of coun­tries abol­ish­ing the death penal­ty reached record levels. 

In its annu­al report on glob­al devel­op­ments in cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, released on April 6, Amnesty said that the bulk of record­ed exe­cu­tions were con­cen­trat­ed in just three out­lier coun­tries — Iran, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia. These coun­tries account­ed for 89% of all recorded executions. 

Amnesty did not set a fig­ure for exe­cu­tions in China, where data on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment is con­sid­ered a state secret. The report esti­mates that China exe­cutes ​“in the thou­sands” of pris­on­ers each year and con­duct­ed more exe­cu­tions than any oth­er coun­try in 2015. Pakistan con­duct­ed the high­est num­ber of exe­cu­tions (326) ever record­ed in that coun­try, as it resumed exe­cu­tions after a six-year mora­to­ri­um, and Egypt and Somalia had sig­nif­i­cant increas­es in exe­cu­tions, although both exe­cut­ed few­er pris­on­ers than did the United States. 

At the same time, 2015 saw the largest num­ber of coun­tries abol­ish­ing the death penal­ty in more than a decade, as four more coun­tries (Republic of Congo, Fiji, Madagascar, and Suriname) offi­cial­ly end­ed the prac­tice. The total num­ber of abo­li­tion­ist coun­tries rose to 102, with 140 coun­tries hav­ing either abol­ished the death penal­ty alto­geth­er or not car­ried out any exe­cu­tions in more than a decade. 

The United States ranked fifth in the num­ber of exe­cu­tions car­ried out in 2015, with exe­cu­tions also con­cen­trat­ed in a few high-use juris­dic­tions — just three states car­ried out 86% of exe­cu­tions, reflect­ing the same pat­terns seen glob­al­ly in the use of the death penalty. 

The report empha­sized the out­lier sta­tus of the few nations that con­tin­ue to per­form exe­cu­tions, say­ing, ​“Today the major­i­ty of the world’s coun­tries are ful­ly abo­li­tion­ist, and dozens more have not imple­ment­ed death sen­tences for more than a decade, or have giv­en clear indi­ca­tions that they are mov­ing towards full abo­li­tion. The stark­ly oppos­ing devel­op­ments that mark 2015 under­score the extent to which the coun­tries that use the death penal­ty are becom­ing the iso­lat­ed minor­i­ty.” (Click here to enlarge graphic.)