Roger Hood (pic­tured), Professor Emeritus of Criminology at the University of Oxford, has pub­lished a report on offi­cial atti­tudes towards cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in China. Abolition of the Death Penalty: China in World Perspective out­lines the changes over the past decade on this issue with­in Chinese aca­d­e­m­ic and judi­cial com­mu­ni­ties. Hood observed that one of the strongest jus­ti­fi­ca­tions for the death penal­ty in China is ​“the belief that ret­ri­bu­tion based on the notion of ​‘a life for a life’ was deeply embed­ded in Chinese cul­ture; that ignor­ing this sup­port might cause social insta­bil­i­ty; and that China [is] not yet suf­fi­cient­ly eco­nom­i­cal­ly devel­oped that it could do away with an effec­tive crim­i­nal sanc­tion.” Nevertheless, Hood points out that despite secre­cy around the country’s death penal­ty, ​“no one can doubt that a move­ment towards restric­tion and even­tu­al abo­li­tion has got under way.” He attrib­ut­es the shift in atti­tudes on the death penal­ty to the emerg­ing inter­na­tion­al nar­ra­tive that sug­gests cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment should be treat­ed not as ​“a weapon of nation­al crim­i­nal jus­tice pol­i­cy,” but as ​“a fun­da­men­tal vio­la­tion of uni­ver­sal human rights: not only the right to life but the right to be free from exces­sive, repres­sive and tor­tu­ous pun­ish­ments — includ­ing the risk that an inno­cent or unde­serv­ing per­son may be executed.”

Hood con­cludes that ​“the last few years have wit­nessed a dis­tinct change in the dis­course, evi­denced by the will­ing­ness of the Chinese author­i­ties to dis­cuss the death penal­ty in human rights sem­i­nars and dia­logues with European coun­tries, the grad­ual open­ing up of the sub­ject to research, and the attempt to guard against wrong­ful con­vic­tion and con­trol the inci­dence of exe­cu­tions through review of all death penal­ty ver­dicts by the Supreme People’s Court.” Read full report.

(R. Hood, ​“Abolition of the Death Penalty: China in World Perspective,” City University of Hong Kong Law Review, 2009). See International. Read more Studies on the death penalty.

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