Amnesty International recent­ly report­ed that at least 1,252 peo­ple were exe­cut­ed in 24 coun­tries and at least 3,347 peo­ple were sen­tenced to death in over 50 coun­tries in 2007. Amnesty esti­mates that there are up to 27,500 peo­ple on death row world­wide. Their fig­ures rep­re­sent a drop in exe­cu­tions from 1,591 in 2006, par­tic­u­lar­ly in China which went from over 1,000 exe­cu­tions in 2006 to 470 last year. However, exe­cu­tion fig­ures are con­sid­ered a state secret in China and the actu­al num­ber of exe­cu­tions may be high­er.

Despite the over­all down­ward trend, exe­cu­tions in Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Pakistan all increased from 2006 to 2007. These coun­tries, along with China and the U.S, car­ried out 88% of known exe­cu­tions in 2007. Currently, 135 coun­tries (67% of the total num­ber of coun­tries) have either offi­cial­ly abol­ished cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment or have refrained from using it for at least 10 years. Albania, Rwanda and the Cook Islands, abol­ished the death penal­ty last year. In the U.S., New Jersey was the first state to leg­isla­tive­ly abol­ish cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment since its rein­state­ment in 1976. The U.S. was fifth in the world in the num­ber of peo­ple exe­cut­ed (42), though exe­cu­tions here dropped to their low­est num­ber in 13 years.

Amnesty’s report not­ed that in 2007 the United Nations General Assembly vot­ed — by 104 to 54, with 29 absten­tions — in sup­port of a mora­to­ri­um on the use of the death penal­ty. ​“The UN General Assembly took the his­toric deci­sion to call on all coun­tries around the world to stop exe­cut­ing peo­ple. That the res­o­lu­tion was adopt­ed in December with such a clear major­i­ty shows the glob­al abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty is pos­si­ble,” said Amnesty International.
(“Death Penalty: World trend down but secre­cy sur­rounds China exe­cu­tion fig­ures- new report,” Amnesty International, April 14, 2008). See International.

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