News Brief — United Nations Passes Resolution Calling for Global Death Penalty Moratorium

For the eighth time since 2007, the United Nations General Assembly has adopt­ed a res­o­lu­tion call­ing for a glob­al mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions. The res­o­lu­tion passed on November 17, 2020 by a vote of 120 – 39 with 24 coun­tries abstain­ing. The United States vot­ed against the res­o­lu­tion. The 120 nations sup­port­ing the mea­sure matched the record lev­el of sup­port set in 2018. For the first time, the res­o­lu­tion specif­i­cal­ly iden­ti­fied women among the groups dis­crim­i­nat­ed against in the appli­ca­tion of the death penalty.