China has adopt­ed new rules that will require all death sen­tences to be reviewed by the Supreme People’s Court, the coun­try’s high­est court. In the past, China has been con­sis­tent­ly list­ed as the lead­ing coun­try in the world in car­ry­ing out exe­cu­tions. The cur­rent reforms are a response to domes­tic and inter­na­tion­al crit­i­cism that cit­ed China’s wide­spread and arbi­trary use of the death penal­ty. In addi­tion, Chinese courts have been embar­rassed in recent years when a num­ber of peo­ple who had been exe­cut­ed were lat­er shown to be inno­cent. The New China News Agency said the changes are ​“believed to be the most impor­tant reform of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in more than two decades.” Death sen­tences may drop by 30%, accord­ing to the state news media.

(N.Y. Times, Nov. 1, 2006). See International.

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