International

The glob­al com­mu­ni­ty large­ly con­demns use of the death penal­ty, with a major­i­ty of coun­tries sup­port­ing a mora­to­ri­um on the use of the death penal­ty as a first step towards abo­li­tion. The death penal­ty has been abol­ished in prac­tice or law in 144 coun­tries, and 2024 saw legal abo­li­tion efforts progress in four more coun­tries. Despite this, glob­al exe­cu­tions increased in 2024 for the third straight year, led by Iran. 

The United States is one of an increas­ing­ly iso­lat­ed num­ber of coun­tries that retain and use the death penal­ty, mak­ing it an out­lier among its clos­est allies, most of whom have long aban­doned the prac­tice and are vocal advo­cates in favor of abo­li­tion. Secrecy around the death penal­ty con­tin­ues to impede a com­plete under­stand­ing of legal and exe­cu­tion prac­tices in coun­tries retain­ing the death penal­ty, includ­ing the United States. Vulnerable pop­u­la­tions, such as eth­nic, reli­gious, or racial minori­ties, as well as the impov­er­ished, psy­choso­cial­ly impaired, and juve­niles con­tin­ue to be over­rep­re­sent­ed across death rows in most retentionist countries.

Since 2007, the United Nations General Assembly has passed ten res­o­lu­tions call­ing for a glob­al mora­to­ri­um on use of the death penal­ty, the lat­est on December 17, 2024. The 2024 res­o­lu­tion was adopt­ed with the record-break­ing sup­port of 130 coun­tries, up from 125 in 2022, and includ­ing most of America’s west­ern allies, while 32 coun­tries vot­ed against the mea­sure (five less than 2022) and 22 abstained. Once again, the United States vot­ed against this year’s res­o­lu­tion, along­side China, Iran, and Saudi Arabia, all high-use retentionist countries. 

Singapore and oth­ers pro­posed an amend­ment to the res­o­lu­tion reaffirming the ​“sov­er­eign right of all coun­tries to devel­op their own legal sys­tems, includ­ing deter­min­ing appro­pri­ate legal penal­ties, in accor­dance with their inter­na­tion­al law oblig­a­tions.” It passed with an over­whelm­ing major­i­ty with 105 votes in favor, 65 against, and 13 absten­tions. The amend­ment implies that coun­tries may ignore the res­o­lu­tion, or shield them­selves from inter­na­tion­al scruti­ny, and has come under criticism. 

Global efforts towards abo­li­tion were exem­pli­fied by leg­isla­tive chal­lenges to the prac­tice in sub-Saharan Africa and judi­cial chal­lenges in Taiwan. This year, Kenya and Zimbabwe con­sid­ered abo­li­tion bills, while The Gambia ini­ti­at­ed a con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment process to abol­ish the prac­tice. It has been over a decade since any of these three nations car­ried out an exe­cu­tion: Kenya’s last exe­cu­tion occurred in 1987, Zimbabwe’s in 2005, and The Gambia’s in 2012. Following a legal chal­lenge this year by 37 death row pris­on­ers, the Constitutional Court of Taiwan ruled on the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the death penal­ty on September 20. The Court decid­ed that the death penal­ty was con­sti­tu­tion­al for the ​“most seri­ous crimes,” such as inten­tion­al killings, and man­dat­ed that the gov­ern­ment amend cer­tain pro­ce­dur­al rules with­in the next two years to bet­ter pro­tect defen­dants’ due process rights. Although the deci­sion did not elim­i­nate the death penal­ty for those with men­tal and intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ties, the Court did find cur­rent pro­vi­sions fail to ade­quate­ly pro­tect these vul­ner­a­ble pop­u­la­tions. Consequently, until new pro­vi­sions meet con­sti­tu­tion­al stan­dards, death sen­tences for these pop­u­la­tions may not be carried out. 

Despite the over­all glob­al trend towards abo­li­tion, total known exe­cu­tions world­wide increased for the third con­sec­u­tive year, led by Iran, Saudi Arabia and Iraq. As in 2023, Iran account­ed for most of the glob­al exe­cu­tion total with at least 800 doc­u­ment­ed exe­cu­tions as of December 1. In response to Iran’s per­sis­tent, aggres­sive use of the death penal­ty, non­vi­o­lent resis­tance efforts have emerged, such as the ongoing ​“No Death Penalty Tuesday” week­ly hunger strike among Iranian pris­on­ers. Saudi Arabia car­ried out an unprece­dent­ed 303 exe­cu­tions (as of December 3), in 2024, its high­est ever total. Iraq, with at least 94 exe­cu­tions in 2024, expe­ri­enced a dra­mat­ic increase from the 16 exe­cu­tions iden­ti­fied by Amnesty International in 2023.

The United States has at times joined the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty in con­demn­ing unlaw­ful actions by fel­low reten­tion­ist coun­tries, but the crit­i­cism has lim­it­ed impact giv­en the fact that America’s own use of the death penal­ty is often crit­i­cized by inter­na­tion­al human rights orga­ni­za­tions. This year, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) grant­ed a pre­cau­tion­ary mea­sure for Brenda Andrew, the only woman on Oklahoma’s death row, call­ing on the United States to refrain from exe­cut­ing her. The United Nations’ report of the Secretary General to the General Assembly on the Question of the Death Penalty crit­i­cized the United States’ use of the death penal­ty on mul­ti­ple fronts, includ­ing the dis­pro­por­tion­ate rep­re­sen­ta­tion of Black peo­ple on U.S. death rows, the lack of legal pro­tec­tions for vul­ner­a­ble pop­u­la­tions such as those with severe men­tal ill­ness and the elder­ly, and botched executions.

Secrecy laws in many reten­tion­ist coun­tries, includ­ing the United States, pre­vent a com­plete under­stand­ing of how the death penal­ty is used. Certain coun­tries, such as China, North Korea, and Vietnam, clas­si­fy the num­ber of death sen­tences and exe­cu­tions as state secrets. Consequently, the exe­cu­tion totals report­ed by Amnesty International and oth­ers are an acknowl­edged under­count. Regarded as the world’s lead­ing exe­cu­tion­er, China is esti­mat­ed to exe­cute thou­sands of peo­ple each year. North Korea, with the fourth high­est exe­cu­tion total this year, has car­ried out at least 32 doc­u­ment­ed exe­cu­tions, includ­ing pub­lic exe­cu­tions, which have also occurred in both Iran and Afghanistan.

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights lim­its use of the death penal­ty to the ​“most seri­ous offens­es,” mean­ing inten­tion­al killings. But this year, peo­ple in coun­tries across the world were charged and exe­cut­ed for non-ser­i­ous offens­es, such as sex­u­al vio­lence, homo­sex­u­al­i­ty, blas­phe­my, fraud, secu­ri­­ty-relat­ed offens­es, and drug-related offenses.

• In India, where some non-lethal sex­u­al crimes are death-eli­gi­ble, a revised crim­i­nal code went into effect on July 1, expand­ing the num­ber of death-eli­gi­ble offens­es from 11 to 15, includ­ing gang-rape of a minor. On September 3, the West Bengal gov­ern­ment in India adopt­ed a bill that makes the death penal­ty a pos­si­ble pun­ish­ment for rape that results in the victim’s death or ​“veg­e­ta­tive state.” 
• In Yemen, 22 indi­vid­u­als were sen­tenced to death in January and February on charges relat­ed to homo­sex­u­al­i­ty. According to Human Dignity Trust, there are 12 coun­tries where homo­sex­u­al­i­ty is a death-eligible offense.
• In Pakistan, sev­er­al peo­ple con­vict­ed of blas­phe­my were sen­tenced to death this year; the offens­es include burn­ing pages of the Quran and shar­ing pho­tos and videos alleged­ly insult­ing the Prophet Muhammad on WhatsApp.
• In Vietnam’s largest ever finan­cial fraud case, Truong My Lan was sen­tenced to death for com­mit­ting $12.5 bil­lion in fraud in April.
• In Iraq, there were at least two mass exe­cu­tions (21 peo­ple exe­cut­ed in September and 13 exe­cut­ed in April) for pris­on­ers con­vict­ed on terrorism-related charges.
• In Iran, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, and a hand­ful of oth­er coun­tries, exe­cu­tions for drug-relat­ed crimes con­tin­ue, with the lat­est exe­cu­tion in Singapore of dual Singaporean-Iranian nation­al Masoud Rahimi Mehrzad on November 29, 2024. Of the at least 800 exe­cu­tions in Iran, 50.75%, or 406 exe­cu­tions, were for drug-related crimes.

Vulnerable pop­u­la­tions, such as eth­nic, reli­gious, or racial minori­ties, as well as the impov­er­ished, psy­choso­cial­ly impaired, and juve­niles are over­rep­re­sent­ed across death rows in most reten­tion­ist coun­tries. The United Nations Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran, along­side human rights orga­ni­za­tions, has not­ed that the Kurd and Baluch minori­ties, who also large­ly live below the nation­al pover­ty line, are over­rep­re­sent­ed among those exe­cut­ed in Iran. Released in October, a joint state­ment by sev­en human rights orga­ni­za­tions called atten­tion to nine juve­niles at immi­nent risk of exe­cu­tion in Saudi Arabia, con­tra­dict­ing pre­vi­ous claims by offi­cials pledg­ing to end the unlaw­ful prac­tice. Somalia, which fol­lows the U.S. as the coun­try with the sixth high­est exe­cu­tion total (as of December 1), exe­cut­ed four peo­ple in August for offens­es they com­mit­ted under the age of 18 while alleged­ly asso­ci­at­ed with Al Shabaab. The exe­cu­tion of these four, who were sen­tenced to death by a mil­i­tary court, drew crit­i­cism from UNICEF, which high­light­ed that military courts ​“lack spe­cial­ized child justice procedures.”