A recent article in The Economist highlights continuing long-term international trends away from the death penalty. Since December, three countries - Fiji, Madagascar, and Suriname - have abolished the death penalty, increasing the number of abolitionist countries to above 100. In December, 117 countries voted to support a United Nations resolution for an international moratorium on executions. The article notes a few outlier countries, including the United States and China, in which executions persist and that there has been a rise in executions in portions of the Muslim world. In the U.S., however, death sentences were down and numerous metrics point to the decline of capital punishment. “Of the 31 states that still have the death penalty, half have executed no one since 2010…In 1994 80% of Americans said they endorsed the death penalty in principle. The Pew Research Centre reckons that fewer than 60% do so today—and notes that young Americans are less keen than their elders.” Even in China, which carries out more executions than any other nation, the use of the death penalty is on the decline. “The number is a state secret but the Dui Hua Foundation, an American NGO, reckons there were about 2,400 [executions] in 2013, the last year it has been able to track. Campaigns against corruption and terrorism mean the fall may not have continued last year. But the long-term trend is steeply down. In 1983 24,000 people are thought to have been executed.” (Click image to enlarge.)

(“On the way out - with grisly exceptions,” The Economist, July 4, 2015; Image by The Economist.) See International.

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