HOW STATES ABOLISH
THE DEATH PENALTY
29 CASE-STUDIES
SECOND EDITION
MAY 2018
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HOW STATES ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
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HOW STATES ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
Glossary ........................................................................................................................................................4
Foreword by Foreign Minister Alfonso Dastis ......................................................................................5
Message by ICDP President Navi Pillay ..................................................................................................7
Introduction ...............................................................................................................................................10
Review of selected countries ............................................................................................................... 14
Argentina ..............................................................................................................................................14
Australia ...............................................................................................................................................15
Benin .....................................................................................................................................................16
Cambodia .............................................................................................................................................19
Congo, Republic of the ...................................................................................................................... 21
Fiji ...........................................................................................................................................................21
France ...................................................................................................................................................22
Germany ............................................................................................................................................... 24
Guatemala ...........................................................................................................................................27
Guinea ................................................................................................................................................... 29
Haiti .......................................................................................................................................................30
Kazakhstan ..........................................................................................................................................31
Kyrgyzstan ...........................................................................................................................................32
Madagascar .........................................................................................................................................33
Mexico ...................................................................................................................................................35
Mongolia ...............................................................................................................................................37
New Zealand ........................................................................................................................................38
Philippines, the....................................................................................................................................39
Portugal ................................................................................................................................................ 42
Rwanda ................................................................................................................................................. 43
Senegal .................................................................................................................................................44
South Africa .........................................................................................................................................46
Spain ......................................................................................................................................................48
Suriname ..............................................................................................................................................50
Togo .......................................................................................................................................................51
Turkey ...................................................................................................................................................52
United States of America.................................................................................................................54
Connecticut ...................................................................................................................................56
Maryland ......................................................................................................................................... 56
New Mexico ....................................................................................................................................58
Uzbekistan ...........................................................................................................................................59
Lessons learnt from the experiences of states in abolishing the death penalty .................... 61
The International Commission against the Death Penalty ............................................................ 64
Sources and Acknowledgments ..........................................................................................................66
TABLE OF CONTENT
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HOW STATES ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
ASEAN Association of Southeast Asian
Nations
AU African Union
CSO Civil Society Organization
ECHR European Court of Human Rights
ECOWAS Economic Community of West
African States
EU European Union
HRC Human Rights Committee
ICCPR International Covenant on Civil
and Political Rights
ICCPR-20P Second Optional Protocol to
or Second the ICCPR, aiming at the aboli-
Optional tion of the death penalty
Protocol
ICDP International Commission
against the Death Penalty
ICTR International Criminal Tribunal
for Rwanda
NGO Non-Governmental Organization
UN United Nations
UNHRC UN Human Rights Council
UNGA United Nations General
Assembly
UNGA UNGA Resolution adopted by
Resolution the General Assembly on 18
oe A/RES/ December 2007, calling for a
62/149 moratorium on executions.
UPR Universal Periodic Review
CONCEPT & DEFINITION
Abolitionist for all crimes: The countries
whose laws do not provide for the death pe-
nalty for any crime. (Amnesty International)
Abolitionist for ordinary crimes: The coun-
tries whose laws provide for the death penal-
ty only for exceptional crimes, such as crimes
under military law or during war.
(Amnesty International)
Abolitionist de facto: Countries which re-
tain the death penalty in law but have not ca-
rried out executions during the past 10 years
and more.
Retentionist: Countries that retain the
death penalty in law for ordinary crimes at all
times, including in times of peace.
Ocial Moratorium on Executions: A pu-
blic commitment made by the highest politi-
cal authorities, which ocially suspends the
implementation of death sentences.
GLOSSARY
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HOW STATES ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
Spain firmly opposes the death penalty and considers it an expression of a failure of the State
and an inhuman attack to life. Human dignity and the respect for human life are cornerstones
of Spanish society. A member of the Council of Europe, where abolition is a key requisite, Spain
was present at the foundation in 2010 of the International Commission against the Death Pe-
nalty (ICDP), and proudly hosts its headquarters in Madrid. We also work hand in hand with 18
other countries in the Support Group of the ICDP as we consider our fight against the death
penalty to be a global one.
This publication is equally global. It explains how the transition of 27 States from death penal-
ty to abolition took place in very dierent political and historical contexts. And how despite
these contrasts, the measures adopted by them to advance towards abolition and the resis-
tances met were very similar in all cases. This confirms that the choice to abolish the death
penalty is not determined by specific circumstances. It is just a matter of willingness: whene-
ver there is willingness, the means to achieve abolition are at hand.
Furthermore, we have the support of facts in our struggle. It is a fact that those countries
which still use the death penalty are not safer than those which do not, rather the contrary.
And Spain being a pioneer in the protection of victims, we know that they and their relatives
are relieved not by vengeance, but by our continuous support and assistance. We must then
pursue a better life for the victims, not the death for the convicted.
Fortunately, data are clear: they all express a clear trend towards abolition, which has been
embraced by more than two thirds of countries in the World. It is not by chance that this pu-
blication doubles the number of countries of the previous edition in 2013. This confirms once
again that universality of human rights is not a theoretical principle but a reality.
These good results encourage us to move forward, but not without caution. Attempts to res-
tore the death penalty are isolated and unsuccessful, but there might be new tries. And those
countries which still make use of capital punishment are very adamant to it. Success and
threats must be our motivation because, as it is always the case with human rights, we cannot
FOREWORD BY
FOREIGN MINISTER
ALFONSO DASTIS
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HOW STATES ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
take abolition for granted. There is always a way to achieve it and a responsibility to maintain
it; the word “impossible” does not apply to the abolitionist cause.
Hence the relevance of this publication for scholars, public opinion and multilateral fora. I am
convinced it will become a key referent for Spain as we foster the cause of abolition during our
membership of the Council of Human Rights from 2018 to 2021.
Alfonso Dastis
Minister of Foreign Aairs and Cooperation of Spain
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HOW STATES ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
I strongly believe in abolition of the death penalty. It is the reason why I joined the International
Commission against the Death Penalty (ICDP or the Commission) where I find myself amongst
an impressive group of persons who also believe in this cause and have shown great com-
mitment in abolishing the death penalty in their home country or internationally. It has been a
pleasure and an honour to be elected as ICDP President in October 2017.
ICDP is composed of 21 high-profile Commissioners and includes former presidents, prime mi-
nisters, government ministers, senior UN ocials, a former USA state governor, former judges
and a former president of the International Court of Justice, and a leading academic.
We, the Commissioners, represent all regions of the world, demonstrating that abolition of the
death penalty is a global concern and not the cause of a particular region, political system,
religion, culture or tradition. We do not represent our countries and we act with total indepen-
dence. Each of my fellow Commissioners is a well-known personality with long experience of
public service and in the field of the Human Rights. We all share a deep passion participating
in –and supporting- the struggle against the death penalty. Our experience and knowledge
enables us to address politically sensitive issues and engage with senior ocials from coun-
tries where the death penalty is still retained.
The Commission is supported by a geographically diverse group of 19 countries and 3 Obser-
ver states who are all committed to the abolition of the death penalty. ICDP’s Support Group
is composed of following full Member States: Algeria, Argentina, Belgium, Dominican Republic,
France, Germany, Italy, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Mongolia, Norway, the Philippines, Portugal, South
Africa, Spain, Switzerland, Togo, Turkey and the United Kingdom, and the 3 Observer States:
Australia, Canada and New Zealand.
ICDP believes that political leadership is very important in ensuring abolition of the death pe-
nalty and this has been underlined by the personal involvement of my fellow Commissioners.
For instance, ICDP´s latest member, the former President of Mongolia, Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj
who joined us earlier this year has shown great political leadership and will in leading Mongolia
MESSAGE BY ICDP
PRESIDENT NAVI PILLAY
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HOW STATES ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
to abolishing the death penalty during his Presidency. He joins the Commissioners including
Robert Badinter, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, Bill Richardson, Ibrahim Najjar and Marzuki Darus-
man, who have played very important roles as leaders to lead their countries towards abolition
of capital punishment.
At the global stage, I have, in my capacity as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, along
with Commissioner Prof Simonovic, in his capacity as UN Assistant Secretary-General for Hu-
man Rights, mainstreamed the discourse of death penalty abolition at the UN. Our Commissio-
ner Marc Baron Bossuyt, is the author of the Second Optional Protocol to the International Co-
venant on Civil and Political Rights, the only global treaty aiming at the abolition of the death
penalty, adopted on 15 December 1989 by the UN General Assembly, and which, as of today,
has 85 States Parties and 2 signatories States, and which has and continues to contribute
significantly to the worldwide abolition of the death penalty.
I have fought against the use of the death penalty as a South African lawyer, as a judge and
President at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, as a judge at the International
Criminal Court, and in my role as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. In my experience, I
have come across and had to make judgments on many horrific crimes against humanity. But
even in those cases, we found that the death penalty is not the answer. Violence cannot be
resolved by more violence. The respect and protection of the fundamental right to life is more
important than any form of revenge. The move away from the death penalty requires political
will and political leadership.
It is a great pleasure to be part of the report on “How States Abolish the Death Penalty: 29
case-studies”, which is an enlarged version of ICDP’s 2013 publication “How States Abolish the
Death Penalty”. The first edition originated from a panel discussion in New York organized by
the UN in July 2012 when questions were raised about how states abolish the death penalty,
following which, in February 2013, ICDP organized a meeting of experts in Geneva to discuss
steps states can take towards abolition of the death penalty.
This document reviews the experiences of 26 countries and three USA states as they moved
towards abolition. Drawing on these lessons and experiences, the document provides guidan-
ce to states on how to abolish the death penalty. I believe this work is essential to promote
the abolition of the capital punishment in all regions of the world.
The first edition was translated into several languages, including Spanish, French, Russian, and
Belarusian, and has been acknowledged as a helpful guide for policy makers in several coun-
tries that are currently taking steps towards abolition of the death penalty.
In their last meeting in October 2017, ICDP Commissioners decided to update this publication
noting that there have been developments in several of the countries mentioned in the publi-
cation and to reflect the current situation of capital punishment by incorporating the expe-
riences of more states.
I fully agree with my predecessor, ICDP founding President Federico Mayor, who mentioned at
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HOW STATES ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
the launch of the first edition, and which still has relevance for this edition, that “ICDP´s goal is
universal abolition of the death penalty. To achieve this goal there are a number of steps which
countries can take. This paper is intended to facilitate and contribute to the ultimate goal –a
death penalty-free world”.
Judge Navi Pillay
President. International Commission against the Death Penalty
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HOW STATES ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
This publication briefly describes the experiences of 26 countries and 3 USA States on their
routes towards abolition of the death penalty. As the 29 case-studies show, there are many
dierent ways in which states choose to abolish the death penalty.
Progress towards abolition at the end of the Second World War was at first slow but sharply
increased from early 1990s onwards. When the UN was founded in 1945, only eight states had
abolished the death penalty for all crimes. Twenty years later, in 1965, twenty-five countries
had abolished the death penalty, eleven of them for all crimes and fourteen for ordinary crimes
in peacetime. In 1998, around 60 countries had abolished the death penalty for all crimes and
the majority of states had considered that the capital punishment was not a solution to end
crimes. Twenty years later, in May 2018, Burkina Faso became the 107th country to abolish the
death penalty for all crimes.
An increasing number of countries have recognized that state killing undermines human dignity
and respect for human rights, such as the discriminatory use of the death penalty, the use of for-
ced confession that increases the possibility of executing an innocent person and the lack of de-
terrence eect of capital punishment. This move towards abolition of the death penalty is being
witnessed in all regions of the world regardless of political system, religion, culture or tradition.
According to the UN, some 160 states have either abolished the death penalty or do not practice
it. As of December 2017, 23 states continue to carry out executions. The challenge is now to en-
courage those states which retain the death penalty to abolish the death penalty for all crimes
and in all circumstances.
There are challenges. The world’s most populated countries -China, India, United States and
Indonesia- are not among those abolitionist countries. Almost half of the world’s population is
not guaranteed the right to life, as prescribed in Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights. Moreover, there have been attempts to reverse abolition of the death penalty in some
States that have ended capital punishment.
This publication highlights the dierent ways adopted by States in achieving abolition of the
INTRODUCTION
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HOW STATES ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
death penalty. Abolition in some of the states is often associated with marking a break with a
repressive past, as happened at the end of apartheid in South Africa, the end of Duvalier regime
in Haiti, the end of the Nazi regime in Germany, the aftermath of the genocide of Rwanda, and a
ceasefire and peace agreement after massive human rights violations in Cambodia.
Argentina, Mexico and Turkey have achieved abolition at the end of periods of martial law or by
removing codes of military justice from their statute books.
Abolition of the death penalty requires political leadership. This leadership against the death
penalty may come from political leaders, the National Assembly, judges, religious figures and
individuals within civil society. Political leadership has been very important in overcoming na-
tional opposition. This has been the case in countries such as France, Mongolia, the Philippines,
Senegal, Togo, Uzbekistan and the USA where leaderships of the governors in the states of
Connecticut, Maryland and New Mexico were important for the abolition of the death penalty.
Personal experience of leaders also plays its part, for example political leaders in South Africa
had themselves faced the possibility of execution. Political leaders, including Presidents, have
regularly used their prerogative to grant clemency and/or impose a moratorium on executions
in France, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Mongolia and the Philippines. Such action paved the way for le-
gislative or constitutional repeal of the capital punishment. Other political leaders, including
members of parliament, have shown leadership in acting for abolition even though public opinion
supported retention of the death penalty.
A constitutional prohibition of the death penalty provides a powerful safeguard to secure aboli-
tion. Countries such as Cambodia, Haiti, Kyrgyzstan, Republic of Congo and Turkey abolished the
death penalty by amending the Constitution, mostly through provisions on the right to life, and
then subsequently amended their penal code and other laws. Other countries for example Fiji,
France, Mexico and Suriname, first undertook legal reform before embodying abolition in their
constitutions.
More recently, countries have adopted the route of making an international commitment to abo-
lish the death penalty as an initial step. Mongolia and Benin undertook their journeys towards
abolition by initially becoming States Parties to the Second Optional Protocol to the ICCPR befo-
re abolishing the death penalty in national law.
In South Africa, the Constitutional Court played a capital role in abolition when its judges decided
that the death penalty violated human rights as a form of cruel, inhuman or degrading punis-
hment. The Constitutional Court is also playing a major role in ensuring that the death penalty
will not be used in Guatemala with its judgements in 2016 and 2017 and thereby making the
country abolitionist for ordinary crimes.
In the USA, individual states have and are taking steps to repeal capital punishment although
at federal level the death penalty remains in force. To date, 19 states have abolished the death
penalty in the USA. In Australia, the abolitionist processes was started by individual states. A
subsequent federal act helped in consolidating the abolitionist trend previously established by
the states.
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HOW STATES ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
Some countries, such as Argentina, Fiji, Guinea, Portugal and South Africa, first became aboli-
tionist for ordinary crimes –the situation of Kazakhstan and Guatemala (as mentioned in the
previous paragraph) as of today- before amending their Military Code of Justice to become abo-
litionist for all crimes.
Professional organizations, notably bar associations, medical associations and law enforcement
organizations, have worked in a number of countries to abolish the death penalty, as have na-
tional human rights institutions. The role played by religious organizations in opposing capital
punishment was significant, for example in the Americas, the Philippines and South Africa.
International pressure has also played an important role. There is a mounting pressure for aboli-
tion resulting from resolutions adopted by the UN General Assembly and the UN Human Rights
Council (UNHRC). The UNHRC routinely raises questions about the death penalty in its peer re-
view of states respect for human rights under the system of Universal Periodic Review (UPR).
Authoritative statements calling for worldwide abolition, for instance from the Council of Euro-
pe, the European Union, the UN and individual Member States, are important and persuasive.
The UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions regularly raises
specific concerns about violations of international standards and calling for safeguards on the
death penalty and restriction on its imposition.
The development of international human rights instruments, and the subsequent jurisprudence
on the role of human rights, has also furthered the abolition of capital punishment. The ICCPR
contains a number of provisions including articles on the right to life, deprivation of liberty and
fair trial guarantees which all impact on the use of the death penalty. The jurisprudence of the
Human Rights Committee (HRC), which monitors implementation of the ICCPR, is important in
ensuring that the provisions are understood and respected and it makes important recommen-
dations after reviewing States observation of the ICCPR. The Second Optional Protocol to the
ICCPR aiming at abolition of the death penalty is also a key development in furthering abolition.
Regional human rights standards have also had marked influence on abolition. In the Organi-
zation of American States (OAS), 25 states have ratified the American Convention on Human
Rights, which prohibits reinstatement of the death penalty in countries that have abolished it.
In Europe, Protocol No. 6 to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and
Fundamental Freedoms provides for the abolition of the death penalty in peacetime, and has
been ratified by 46 states whereas, Protocol 13 to the same Convention, requiring abolition in
all circumstances without reservations or derogations, has been ratified by 44 states. All 47
members of the Council of Europe have abolished capital punishment or instituted moratorium
on executions. The European Union and the Council of Europe have made abolition a condition
for its memberships. The African Commission of Human and People´s Rights has adopted three
resolutions, in 1999, 2008 and 2017 calling on States Party to the African Charter on Human
and People´s Rights to observe a moratorium on the death penalty.
Retentionist States often rely on dierent arguments to maintain the death penalty in their
laws. Such arguments, including the idea that the public favors the death penalty and the dete-
rrent eect of the capital punishment, have made it very dicult to abolish capital punishment.
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HOW STATES ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
Detailed and impartial studies about the lack of deterrent eect of the death penalty and its
arbitrary and discriminatory use contributed to the abolition of the death penalty in Mongolia,
the Philippines, South Africa and the US state of New Mexico.
It is therefore important that retentionist states ensure that information and statistics regar-
ding the death penalty are publically available. Nevertheless, even with such information public
opinion can fluctuate dramatically, particularly in response to serious crimes and the media co-
verage of such crimes. While public views on the death penalty are relevant, ultimately it is the
political leadership that leads the State in its decision to abolish the death penalty. Experience
shows that capital punishment has been abolished even when public opinion favors such punis-
hment. This was the case, for example, in Canada, France, Germany, United Kingdom and among
the 19 states in the USA which repealed the death penalty. Once abolished, historical expe-
rience has shown that the majority of the public has not opposed this decision and has shown
willingness to accept death penalty abolition.
ICDP works for global abolition of the death penalty. The 29 case studies, including 26 coun-
tries and 3 states of the USA, represent all regions of the world. As in the previous edition, this
narrative is concluded by a brief description of lessons learned from experiences of these case
studies. Finally, there is a section on the ICDP and its Commissioners.
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HOW STATES ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
ARGENTINA
Argentina has a long abolitionist tradition.
The last legal execution took place in 1916
and was followed by periods of complete
abolition, from 1921, and reinstatement
of the death penalty under military gover-
nments in the 1970s. Argentina abolished
the death penalty by law for ordinary cri-
mes in 1984 and for all crimes in 2008. In
1994, the death penalty was prohibited in
the constitution for political crimes.
Argentina had already abo-
lished the death penalty for
ordinary criminal oences
in 1921 but laws passed in
1950 and 1951 provided the death penalty for
politically related oences: espionage and sa-
botage as well as acts punishable under the
provisions of the Code of Military Justice which
was intended to try the leaders of rebellions.
These laws were repealed under the first go-
vernment of President Juan Perón. However,
the de facto governments (1966–1973) rein-
troduced the death penalty for political crimes
in 1970 and under criminal law in 1971. The-
se legal changes met with strong opposition
from jurists and others, leading to the aboli-
tion of the death penalty in 1972 under Gene-
ral Lanusse, except in the Military Penal Code.
After the military coup of 24 March 1976 that
deposed Isabel Martínez de Perón, the death
penalty was reintroduced for violent crimes
and attacks on public services, in so-called
“crimes with the purpose of subversion”. This
penalty could be imposed on any person who
was over 16 years of age. During the last mi-
litary dictatorship, which ruled from 1976 to
1983, no judicial death sentences were impo-
sed, but the military junta resorted to large-
scale extrajudicial executions, torture and
enforced disappearances, among other viola-
tions of human rights.
In December 1983, the Constitutional Presi-
dent, Raúl Alfonsín, restored the rule of law in
Argentina. The Government was committed
to breaking with the repressive policies of the
military junta, taking steps to establish the
liability of widespread human rights violations
committed during the dictatorship. The Alfon-
sín Government adopted a comprehensive le-
gislative reform that included the removal of
the decree laws, which established the death
penalty. In August 1984, the National Con-
gress passed Law 23077 which eliminated the
death penalty in the Penal Code for ordinary
REVIEW OF SELECTED
COUNTRIES
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HOW STATES ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
criminal oences. In March 1984, Argentina
ratified the American Convention on Human
Rights, which requires that once a country has
abolished the death penalty “it shall not be re-
established”.
The death penalty could still be imposed by
special legislation. The 1951 Military Justice
Code remained in force, and the military courts
could apply the death penalty during armed
conflict or in peacetime for crimes of treason,
espionage, rebellion and mutiny (oences un-
der the Military Penal Code). Article 759 of
the Code of Military Justice established the
death penalty for desertion in time of war,
and Articles 131 and 132 established that
both civilians and military could be summarily
executed by applying the emergency regula-
tions. Legislation adopted in 1984 reduced the
scope of the Code of Military Justice, imposing
mandatory intervention by a federal appeals
court to review all decisions of military courts.
In 1994, the National Constitution was amen-
ded. One of the most important changes was
the incorporation of international human
rights treaties in the Constitution. Among the
amendments was a specific provision, in Ar-
ticle 18, that the “Death penalty for political
causes […] [is] forever abolished”. Finally, in
August 2008, the Code of Military Justice was
abolished by law, military courts of justice cea-
sed to exist and the death penalty was abolis-
hed for all crimes.
At the United Nations General Assembly
(UNGA) in 2007, Argentina voted in favour of
resolution calling for a moratorium on execu-
tions worldwide with a view to abolishing the
death penalty (A/RES/62/149), and voted
for all subsequent death penalty resolutions
adopted in 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014 and 2016.
To underline its international commitment to
total abolition, Argentina ratified the Second
Optional Protocol to the International Cove-
nant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR-2OP)
aiming at abolition of the death penalty in May
2008 and the Protocol to the American Con-
vention on Human Rights to Abolish the Death
Penalty in June 2008. Argentina was a co-lea-
der of the group of countries that worked to-
gether to increase support for the UNGA reso-
lution in 2016. Argentina, together with the EU
and Mongolia, created the Alliance for Torture-
free Trade which aims to end trade in goods
used for capital punishment and torture. The
Alliance was launched on 18 September 2017
and 58 countries adopted a political declara-
tion during the event.
Argentina is a founding Member-State of the
Support Group of the ICDP.
AUSTRALIA
The last execution in Australia took place
in February 1967, when Ronald Ryan was
hanged in Melbourne for shooting a prison
ocer during an escape. The last person to
be sentenced to death was Brenda Hodge
in Western Australia in 1984 for murder but
her sentence was shortly after commuted
to life imprisonment. The federal Death
Penalty Abolition Act 1973 helped consoli-
date the abolitionist trend established by
the states of Queensland in 1922 and Tas-
mania in 1968. New South Wales was the
last state to abolish the death penalty for
all crimes in 1985.
The death penalty was in-
troduced as formal law in
Australia at the time of the
British colonization (1788)
even though the punishment already existed
in customary law of some Aboriginal groups.
During the British colonial era, state execution
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HOW STATES ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
was applied for a variety of oences including
sheep stealing, forgery, burglary and murder.
Reportedly, more than 1,500 people were han-
ged between 1820 and 1900. Since Australia’s
independence in 1901, and until the last exe-
cution in 1967, Australian states carried out
executions on 114 occasions, most of them in
the first 20 years of federation.
In 1973, the federal Death Penalty Abolition
Act 1973 eliminated capital punishment for
oences under the laws of the Common-
wealth and of the Territories. At that time,
two Australian states had already abolished
the death penalty, Queensland being the first
in 1922, joined by Tasmania in 1968. Victoria
followed in 1975, South Australia in 1976 and
Western Australia in 1984. The last jurisdiction
to abolish the death penalty for all crimes was
New South Wales in 1985 even though capital
punishment for murder had previously been
abolished in 1955.
On 2 October 1990, Australia confirmed its op-
position to the death penalty by acceding to
the Second Optional Protocol to the ICCPR ai-
ming at the abolition of the death penalty. Mo-
reover, in December 2007, Australia voted in
favour of the first UNGA Resolution calling for
a moratorium on executions worldwide with
a view to abolishing the death penalty, and
voted in favor of all subsequent resolutions
on worldwide moratoria in 2008, 2010, 2012,
2014 and 2016.
On 11 March 2010, the Commonwealth Parlia-
ment passed the Crimes Legislation Amend-
ment (Torture Prohibition and Death Penalty
Abolition) Act 2010. This Act amended the
Death Penalty Abolition Act 1973 and exten-
ded the current Commonwealth prohibition on
the death penalty to all States and Territories,
foreclosing the possibility of any individual Sta-
te jurisdiction reintroducing the death penalty.
Australia cannot extradite an individual to a
country where the oence concerned is pu-
nishable by the death penalty. However, an
exception may apply if an undertaking is provi-
ded by the requesting country that the death
penalty will not be imposed, or if imposed, not
carried out.
Recent executions of Australians overseas for
drug-related crimes have raised a great deal
of concern in Australia.
Australia is an Observer State of ICDP’s Sup-
port Group.
BENIN
The Republic of Benin (Benin) was the 16th
African State to abolish the death penalty
when it made an international commitment
by acceding to the Second Optional Proto-
col to the ICCPR on 5 July 2012. At a do-
mestic level, Benin is still in the process of
removing the death penalty from its natio-
nal legislation. The last known execution
took place in 1987.
The death penalty was in-
cluded in the “Code Penal
Bouvenet” (Code Bouvenet),
the Criminal Code which had
been introduced in the French West African
colonies and dates back to 1877. Although
Benin’s Code of Criminal Procedure entered
into full force and eect in 1967, its Criminal
Code was not consistent with the country’s
international human rights commitments. The
death penalty was provided for in several ar-
ticles of the Code Bouvenet, for example, for
aggravated murder (articles 302, 304), rob-
bery not resulting in death (article 381), arson
not resulting in death (articles 95, 434, 435),
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HOW STATES ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
corruption (article 182) and repeat oences
(article 56). In 2001, the Benin Government
decided to implement an up-to-date law, but
to this day it has not been enacted.
The Constitution, that came into eect on 11
December 1990 and led to the establishment
of its present presidential democratic repu-
blic, contains provisions that provide for the
protection of human rights, especially in its
articles 15, 40, 114, 117, and 147, and is a cru-
cial foundation of Benin’s democratic renewal
(Renouveau Démocratique).
In order to initiate and advance the abolition
of the death penalty, an advisory body, the
National Human Rights Advisory Board, was
established in 2004 with the consent of the
then President Mathieu Kerekeu along with
the support of civil society organizations and
the Human Rights Unit of the Ministry of Jus-
tice, Human Rights and Legislation. The Natio-
nal Human Rights Advisory Board investigated
issues surrounding the death penalty and de-
bated the abolition of the death penalty in the
country at its session in February 2004.
Although Benin has not carried out the death
penalty since 1987, it has been criticized for
handing death sentences for crimes inclu-
ding armed robbery without loss of life. On 1
December 2004, the UN Human Rights Com-
mittee (HRC), that monitors States´ implemen-
tation of the ICCPR, concluded in its eighty-
second session (CCPR/CO/82/BEN) that the
country should limit the death penalty to the
most serious crimes and consider abolishing
the death penalty by signing the Second Op-
tional Protocol to the ICCPR. The HRC also re-
commended that the death sentences should
be commuted to imprisonment. However,
death sentences continued to be imposed.
In February 2006, a death sentence was even
passed in absentia.
Benin´s approach toward abolition of capi-
tal punishment witnessed a transformation
which became evident when on 18 Decem-
ber 2007, the country voted in favour of the
UNGA resolution on a worldwide moratorium
on the use of the death penalty, which aims
at the abolition of the death penalty. During
the first cycle of its review Universal Perio-
dic Review (UPR) in 2008, Benin stated that
it would strengthen its eorts of continuing
the abolition process (A/HRC/8/39, A/HRC/
WG.6/2/BEN/1). The Government appointed a
multidisciplinary committee (decrees Nº2008-
52 18 February 2008, Nº2008-597 22 October
2008), the Commission Technique ad’hoc de
Relecture de la Constitution, also named the
Ahanhanzo-Glèlè Commission after its chair-
man Professor Maurice Glèlè Ahanhanzo, to
start a review process of the 11 December
1990 Constitution in 2008. The final report of
the 11 members of the technical ad-hoc Com-
mission on 31 December 2008 (which was re-
leased on 28 February 2009) recommended
the abolition of the death penalty.
In November 2009, with consent and support
of President Thomas Boni Yayi, the country’s
Government sent a bill, concerning the consti-
tutional abolition of the death penalty, to the
National Assembly for discussion and adop-
tion. Despite these developments, at least
five persons were sentenced to death in 2009
and at least one person was sentenced repor-
tedly to death in 2010.
The Second Conference for North and West
Africa on the Question of the Death Penalty
in Africa was held in Cotonou, the capital of
Benin, from 12 to 15 April 2010. The confe-
rence was organized by the Working Group on
Death Penalty and Extra-Judicial, Summary
or Arbitrary Killings in Africa (WGDP) which
is part of the African Commission on Hu-
man and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR). One of the
conference’s three speakers during the ope-
18
HOW STATES ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
ning ceremony was Victor Prudent Topanou,
then Benin’s Minister of Justice, Legal Aairs
and Human Rights. The conference succee-
ded in drafting the Cotonou Framework, which
provides detailed strategies for abolishing the
death penalty in Africa.
In 2010, constitutional reforms were still on-
going in Benin and the country’s legislation
prepared for ratifying the Second Optional
Protocol to the ICCPR.
On 18 August 2011, the National Assembly
voted with an overwhelming majority (54 vo-
tes in favour, five against and six abstentions)
to accede to the Second Optional Protocol to
the ICCPR. The National Assembly’s President,
Mathurin Co Nago, said that “Benin wants
to promote human dignity and progressive
development of human rights”. With the final
accession to the Second Optional Protocol on
5 July 2012 and its entering into full force and
eect on 5 October 2012, Benin became the
75th country worldwide and the 16th African
country to become a State Party to the ICC-
PR-2OP thereby making an international com-
mitment to abolish capital punishment.
In March 2012, a new Criminal Code was adop-
ted in Benin. It still contained provisions rela-
ting to the death penalty in two articles (article
685 and article 793). Subsequently, on 4 Au-
gust 2012, the Constitutional Court of Benin
stated that those provisions were unconsti-
tutional (DCC 12-153). The National Assembly
amended a new draft Code on 17 December
2012, from which the articles of the Criminal
Code deemed unconstitutional with referen-
ces to the death penalty were removed. The
Constitutional Court of Benin declared the
new Code of Criminal Procedure Act No. 2012-
15 constitutional on 14 March 2013. Reports
suggest that as of end of 2017, the National
Assembly had yet to adopt laws removing the
death penalty from national legislation.
The African Continental Conference on the
Death Penalty, organized by the ACHPR, the
Government of Benin and Hands o Cain was
hosted in Cotonou between 2 and 4 July 2014.
The conference succeeded in adopting the
Declaration of Cotonou (2014), which promo-
tes the abolition of the death penalty on the
African continent.
In May 2016, the Minister of Justice gave “as-
surances to Amnesty International that the
death row prisoners will not be executed and
that Benin is committed to its obligations
under the ICCPR-2OP not to carry out exe-
cutions”. However, he also stated that their
commitment could only “be done by a judge or
through legislation of the National Assembly”
(Living in Limbo: Benin’s last death row priso-
ners, AI Index: ACT50/4980/2017). According
to the same organization, “the Constitutional
Court of Benin eectively abolished the death
penalty for all crimes in a 2016 judgment”.
However, at the end of 2017 “the National As-
sembly was yet to adopt laws removing the
death penalty from national legislation”.
Benin elected Patrice Talon as the country’s
new President in March 2016, succeeding Tho-
mas Boni Yayi in oce. The new President has
yet to show his commitment towards the abo-
lition of the death penalty and the removal of
the death penalty in the country’s national le-
gislation, as well as the commutation of death
sentences into imprisonment. It was notewor-
thy that when the country was assessed un-
der the UPR in November 2017, Benin suppor-
ted the recommendations to complete the
abolitionist process, to adopt a new Criminal
Code to finally exclude the death penalty from
its legislation and to commute the sentences
of the last individuals sentenced to death.
At the UNGA, Benin voted in favor of resolu-
tion calling for a moratorium on executions
worldwide with a view to abolishing the death
19
HOW STATES ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
penalty. It did the same in 2008 and as well as
in 2012, 2014 and 2016 after it had registe-
red as absent in 2010. Benin has co-sponsored
the draft UNGA in 2007, 2008, 2010, 2012 and
2014.
According to Amnesty International, on 21 Fe-
bruary 2018, the Government commuted the
sentences of all the 14 men who were facing
the death penalty to life imprisonment. They
had been under sentence of death for over 18
years.
CAMBODIA
Cambodia has the longest period of aboli-
tion of capital punishment of any country
in Asia. Along with the Philippines, it is one
of two Member-States of the Association
of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to
have abolished the death penalty for all
crimes. The date of the last execution is
not known. The death penalty was prohi-
bited for all crimes in 1989 by an amend-
ment to the 1981 constitution. Abolition
of the death penalty was subsequently
eectively incorporated in transitionary
legislation passed in 1992 under UN su-
pervision and was then secured in the new
1993 constitution, rooted in an agreement
to settle the long-standing Kampuchean
conflict that was reached under interna-
tional auspices in Paris in 1991.
Between 1975 and 1979,
over one million, though
some estimates suggest
nearly two million Cambo-
dians were arrested, tortured, executed or
starved to death under a policy of forced re-
location to the countryside carried out by the
Government of Democratic Kampuchea, led
by Pol Pot. He headed the Communist Party of
Kampuchea, known as the “Khmer Rouge”.
A 1979 decree, passed after the Pol Pot Go-
vernment was overthrown, provided death as
punishment for genocide and its scope was
extended under the 1980 Decree Law No. 2
for oences including treason against the re-
volution and theft of public property, murder
and rape. However, the death penalty did not
apply to anyone convicted of genocide or trea-
son who vowed political loyalty to the new Go-
vernment of the People’s Republic of Kampu-
chea (PRK). At least five men were sentenced
to death under the decree for genocide and
treason under the PRK Government. Three of
them, including Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot,
were tried in absentia.
In Cambodia, the death penalty was abolished
by constitutional amendment in April 1989. Ar-
ticle 35 of this amendment abolished the death
penalty for all crimes and was intended to sig-
nify new policies at the end of the Pol Pot re-
gime and subsequent fighting between forces
of the PRK Government, led by Hun Sen, and
armed opposition forces in the Coalition Gover-
nment of Democratic Kampuchea (CGDK). This
coalition was later renamed the National Go-
vernment of Cambodia (NCG). The opposition
coalition included the “Khmer Rouge” (then ca-
lled the Party of Democratic Kampuchea) and
Prince Norodom Sihanouk’s National United
Front for an Independent, Neutral, Peaceful and
Cooperative Cambodia (FUNCINPEC).
International pressure and assistance also pla-
yed a substantive part in the abolition of the
death penalty. International NGOs had pushed
for strong human rights provisions in the Paris
Agreement and in the new Constitution, for a
commitment towards abolition of the death
penalty. Amnesty International, for example,
had written to PRK leaders in July and Septem-
ber 1988 to express concern about the use of
20
HOW STATES ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
the death penalty and to urge that enforcea-
ble guarantees for respecting international
human rights standards be an important part
of any political settlement that would also in-
clude an end to the death penalty. Amnesty
International also pressed these proposals
from the early stages of negotiations on the
three opposition parties participating in the
talks, one of whose leaders, Prince Norodom
Sihanouk, responded in September and Octo-
ber 1988 expressing support for ending the
death penalty in Cambodia.
International eorts had intensified to bring
the protracted Kampuchean conflict to an end.
A ceasefire was eventually agreed in 1991 and
the Paris Peace Agreement was concluded in
October 1991, signed by the Government of
the State of Cambodia, led by Hun Sen, three
opposition parties – the Khmer Rouge, FUN-
CINPEC and the Khmer People’s National Libe-
ration Front (KPNLF) – as well as by all five Per-
manent Members of the UN Security Council
and 13 other Governments.
The agreement committed Cambodia, in Arti-
cle 15 (2), “To ensure respect for and obser-
vance of human rights and fundamental free-
doms in Cambodia” and “to adhere to relevant
international human rights instruments”. An-
nex 5 to the Agreement sets out the Princi-
ples for a New Constitution for Cambodia to
incorporate special measures to assure pro-
tection of human rights, a constitutional de-
claration of fundamental rights including the
right to life, and the need for consistency of
constitutional provisions in line with the UN
Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Under
the accord, the UN Transitional Authority in
Cambodia (UNTAC) was established to super-
vise the ceasefire as well as law enforcement
and judicial processes as part of the process
to prepare Cambodia for a new Constitution
fostering “an environment in which respect for
human rights shall be ensured”.
UNTAC was deployed in 1992 and oces were
established in March 1992. UNTAC assisted in
drafting legal texts on civil and criminal law.
In September that year the Supreme National
Council, the legitimate transitional body, adop-
ted the Provisions Relating to the Judiciary
and Criminal Law and Procedure Applicable in
Cambodia during the Transitional Period. This
transitional law, prepared with UNTAC’s assis-
tance, states in Article 67 that “the death pe-
nalty is abolished in Cambodia”.
On 24 September 1993, Cambodia adopted a
new Constitution based on the human rights
provisions articulated in the Paris Peace Agre-
ement. Article 32, prepared under the UN man-
date of legal assistance to Cambodia, states
“Every Khmer citizen shall have the right to life,
personal freedom and security”. It then speci-
fically provides that “There shall be no capital
punishment”. The Constitution was criticized,
however, for excluding anyone who was not a
“Khmer citizen” from the constitutional human
rights provisions. The transitional Code of Cri-
minal Law and Procedure continued to apply
for some time until a new Penal Code entered
into force in December 2010, which also does
not provide for the death penalty.
At the UNGA in 2007, Cambodia voted in fa-
vour of resolution calling for a moratorium on
executions worldwide with a view to abolis-
hing the death penalty, and voted for all sub-
sequent death penalty resolutions adopted in
2008, 2010, 2012, 2014 and 2016. Cambodia
is not yet a party to the Second Optional Pro-
tocol to the ICCPR aiming at abolition of the
death penalty. Cambodia was assessed during
the UPR in 2014 and noted, but did not accept,
the recommendations to sign and ratify the
two Optional Protocols to the ICCPR including
the Second Optional Protocol aiming at the
abolition of the death penalty.
21
HOW STATES ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
CONGO, Republic of the
The Republic of the Congo (Congo, Congo-
Brazzaville) abolished the death penalty
on 6 November 2015 when a new Constitu-
tion was promulgated. The last executions
were carried out in 1982. The number of
death sentences declined gradually but
continued to be handed down until aboli-
tion mostly on charges of murder. The po-
litical leadership of President Nguesso pla-
yed an important role in bringing abolition
to Congo.
Congo observed a de fac-
to moratorium on the use
of the death penalty since
its last executions in 1982.
The personal leadership of President Sassou
Nguesso, who has been the President of the
Republic of the Congo since 1997 and was pre-
viously President from 1979 to 1992, was key
to achieve the abolition of the capital punish-
ment in the country. In 1991, amendments to
its laws reportedly abolished the death penal-
ty for political crimes.
The country’s attitude towards the death pe-
nalty changed in the 2000’s. On 15 August
2007, during the celebrations of Congo’s In-
dependence Day, the remaining 17 persons
under sentence of death had their sentences
commuted by Presidential Decree to life impri-
sonment with hard labour.
That same year, at the UNGA in 2007, Congo
voted in favour of the resolution calling for a
moratorium on executions worldwide with a
view to abolishing the death penalty, and vo-
ted for all subsequent death penalty resolu-
tions adopted in 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014 and
2016. Congo also co-sponsored the UNGA
resolutions calling for a moratorium between
2008 and 2016.
Congo was assessed under the UPR in 2009
and in 2013. In both occasions, the country
supported the recommendations to abolish
the death penalty showing that the govern-
ment was in favour of abolition even though
steps were taken yet. Within this context, civil
society organizations lobbied Congolese autho-
rities to move towards the abolition, with the
Observatoire Congolais des Droits de l’Homme
(Congolese Observatory for Human Rights) and
the Action des Chrétiens pour l’Abolition de la
Torture (Action by Christians against Torture)
playing a leading role. Reports suggest that
activists working on this issue found the idea
of abolition was widespread when they met
Government ocials in October 2015 on the
occasion of a conference on the death penalty
which was to be hosted by President Nguesso.
The conference did not take place reportedly
on grounds that a constitutional reform was
taking place. The main aim of the Constitutio-
nal reform was to allow the President Sassou
Nguesso to run for re-election in 2016.
The reformed new Constitution was appro-
ved by referendum on 25 October 2015. The
Constitution was promulgated on 6 November
2015 which included a provision abolishing the
death penalty.
FIJI
The death penalty was abolished in the Re-
public of Fiji (Fiji) for ordinary crimes in 1979
and for treason in 2002. In February 2015,
a legislative amendment abolished the ca-
pital punishment for military oences, ma-
king Fiji abolitionist for all crimes. The last
execution was carried out in 1964, six years
prior to the country’s independence in 1970.
After 1964, all the death sentences were
commuted to terms of imprisonment.
22
HOW STATES ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
Fiji did not carry out execu-
tions after gaining indepen-
dence in 1970. As in the
case of many other coun-
tries, Fiji’s abolitionist process was achieved
after progressive restrictions on the use of
the death penalty. After the last execution in
1964, the oences carrying out the death pe-
nalty were gradually restricted, and by 1972
only aggravated murder was punished with
the death penalty.
In 1973, courts were granted greater discre-
tion with the removal of mandatory death pe-
nalty for murder. In contrast, the scope of the
death penalty was reportedly expanded the
same year.
A milestone for the movement towards abo-
lition came in 1979, when Fiji abolished the
death penalty for ordinary crimes. However,
the death penalty remained applicable to cer-
tain military crimes including genocide and
other military crimes.
The death penalty came to focus when Geor-
ge Speight, the leader of the May 2000 coup
d’état, was sentenced to death for treason
1
.
However, his death sentence was commu-
ted to life imprisonment by the Government.
There were fears of political unrest if George
Speight’s execution had been carried out. In
any case, the law at the time did not provide
for any execution procedure.
As a consequence, the Fijian Parliament voted
unanimously to abolish the capital punish-
ment for all ordinary oences, including trea-
son, but continued to retain it for crimes com-
mitted under military law during war time. The
Crimes Decree removed the last references to
the death penalty in the Penal Code, abolis-
hing the death penalty for charges including
treason, instigating a foreign invasion with
military force and genocide, but the capital
punishment for the same charges remained in
the Military Code for another 13 years.
The death penalty provisions in the Mili-
tary Code were introduced by the United
Kingdom´s 1955 Army Act, which had long sin-
ce been repealed in the United Kingdom but
still remained in Fiji, even though it had never
been applied. The death penalty returned to
the limelight when Fiji was reviewed under the
UPR cycles of 2010 and 2014.
On 10 February 2015, the Parliament passed
a bill, introduced by Attorney General Aiyaz
Sayed-Khaiyum, amending the Military Forces
Act to remove the death penalty provisions.
The law was passed with 29 votes in favour, 1
vote against, 9 abstentions and 11 absent. Fiji
became abolitionist for all crimes and death
penalty provisions in the military code were
replaced with life imprisonment.
Fiji voted in favour of the UNGA Resolution ca-
lling for a universal moratorium on the use of
the death penalty in 2014 and 2016. The cou-
ntry had previously abstained.
FRANCE
France abolished the death penalty by
law for all crimes in 1981 thus joining the
13 other European countries which had
already achieved abolition. Abolition fo-
llowed a long public debate, presidential
pardons, a cross-party study group, legal
action in the courts and decisive action by
1.
In May 2000, George Speight had stormed into the Parliament and kidnaped the President and 35 other Parliamentarians
for 56 days.
23
HOW STATES ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
President Mitterrand who publicly advoca-
ted abolition notwithstanding a majority
of the French public favouring the death
penalty. In 2007, abolition of the death pe-
nalty was incorporated in the Constitution.
The last execution took place in 1977.
France’s first Penal Code of
1791, adopted during the
French Revolution, provided
for decapitation and since
then the death penalty was always carried
out by guillotine. An 1848 decree, confirmed
in 1853, abolished the death penalty for po-
litical crimes. During the nineteenth century,
the death penalty was debated among acade-
mics, legal scholars and political and literary
figures, among them Victor Hugo, who descri-
bed the last day of a condemned man to illus-
trate his opposition to capital punishment.
The last public execution took place in Versai-
lles in 1939. It revived the public debate about
the death penalty after pictures of the exe-
cution, employing a faulty guillotine, were wi-
dely distributed in the press. The Government
promptly banned all publicity surrounding exe-
cutions, except for summary ocial announce-
ments. From then on, secrecy surrounded the
executions that were subsequently carried out.
Executions by guillotine for death sentences
pronounced by special courts were carried
out regularly during the time of German oc-
cupation of France and the period immedia-
tely after the war saw a high execution rate.
However, there were fewer executions after
the 1950s. For example, between 1959 and
1979, 51 people were condemned to death for
ordinary crimes, of whom 14 were executed,
as well as two members of the paramilitary
OAS (Organisation Armée Secrète). A strong
abolitionist tradition emerged in French litera-
ture and film. The writer Albert Camus wrote a
book in 1957 reflecting on the guillotine and,
with Arthur Koestler, he wrote reflections on
the death penalty, with a plea for abolition.
French films during this period highlighted the
inhumanity of the death penalty.
After a consultation with judicial and admi-
nistrative ocials, French Presidents exer-
cised their powers to grant clemency more
frequently and judges also showed more
reluctance to hand down death sentences.
However, a number of crimes against children
in the 1970s galvanized public opinion in fa-
vour of the death penalty, with up to 65% of
the population supporting retention. Execu-
tions in 1972 attracted international criticism,
as they were being carried out at a time that
most European countries were abolishing the
death penalty. However, the relatively low rate
of executions in the 1960s and the opinions
expressed and actions taken by French Pre-
sidents on the death penalty, ambivalent as
they were, enlarged scope for public debate
on capital punishment.
In April 1974, the Presidential candidate Va-
léry Giscard d’Estaing expressed his ‘profound
aversion’ to the death penalty, but added that
he would not counter the profound sentiments
of the French people on the matter. Once elec-
ted, however, he permitted three executions.
His failure to grant clemency leading to a July
1976 execution attracted negative criticism
in the press and revived the public debate
about capital punishment. President Giscard
D’Estaing said he wanted a thorough analysis
of executions. Various professional organiza-
tions debated the death penalty and in 1976
the Syndicat de la Magistrature (Trade Union
of Magistrates) voted for abolition with a wide
margin. The National Assembly established a
cross-party study group and the Commission
for Revision of the Penal Code expressed its
opposition to the death penalty. The Protes-
tant and Catholic churches also strongly voi-
ced their abolitionist views.
24
HOW STATES ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
The death penalty was also challenged in the
courts. Robert Badinter, a lawyer and socialist
politician, persuaded judges six times from
1976 to 1980 to spare the life of a murderer
by opposing the death penalty as cruel and in-
human punishment and which risked innocent
persons being sentenced to death. President
Mitterrand, who had declared his opposition to
the death penalty just a few weeks before the
1981 elections, appointed him to be Minister
of Justice in his new socialist Government.
One of the first acts of the new Government
was to commute three death sentences pas-
sed in May 1981 and for Minister of Justice
Badinter to introduce an abolitionist bill in the
National Assembly in September under the
quick vote procedure. It also attracted the
support of centre-right parties. On 9 October
1981 the death penalty was abolished for all
civil and military oences under Article 1 of
Law No. 81-809, after votes in favour among
the Members of National Assembly (363 to
117), and the Senate (160 to 26). This hap-
pened at a time when 60–65% of the French
people favoured capital punishment.
As a final step to securing the strongest gua-
rantee against the death penalty, abolition was
enshrined in the constitution at the initiative of
President Chirac by constitutional amendment
passed in the National Assembly in 2007. Arti-
cle 66-1 of the Constitution provides that “no
one shall be sentenced to the death penalty”.
France’s position against the death penalty
was underlined by its ratification of Protocol 6
of the European Convention on Human Rights
in February 1986, providing for abolition of the
death penalty in peacetime. In October 2007,
France also acceded to Protocol 13 of the Con-
vention, abolishing the death penalty in all cir-
cumstances.
At the UNGA in 2007, France voted in favour
of the resolution calling for a moratorium on
executions worldwide with a view to abolis-
hing the death penalty and voted for all sub-
sequent death penalty resolutions adopted in
2008, 2010, 2012, 2014 and 2016. In October
2007, France became a party to the Second
Optional Protocol to the ICCPR aiming at aboli-
tion of the death penalty.
France is a founding Member of ICDP’s Support
Group.
GERMANY
The end of World War II left Germany divi-
ded as two dierent countries (the Fede-
ral Republic of Germany (West Germany or
GFR) and the German Democratic Republic
(East Germany or GDR)), and as a result
the capital punishment followed dierent
paths in each territory. West Germany abo-
lished the death penalty in 1949 and East
Germany in 1987, before its unification in
1990. The unified Germany continues to be
death penalty abolitionist.
In the 19th century, before
the creation of the German
Empire in 1871 under Chan-
cellor Otto von Bismarck,
there was a previous attempt to form a unified
German nation state following the 1848 March
Revolution. In this attempt, a Frankfurt Cons-
titution was drafted in 1849 and adopted by
the Frankfurt National Assembly on 27 March
1849. However, the following month, in April
1849, consequent to the decision by Frederick
William IV, the National Assembly dissolved.
Before its dissolution, the Frankfurt National
Assembly adopted the Imperial Act concer-
ning the Basic Rights of the German People on
25
HOW STATES ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
21 December 1848 which provided for lega-
lly binding human and civil rights. Among the
rights protected by this Act were the equality
of everyone before the law, the abolition of
all class privileges, guaranteed personal and
political liberties, (i.e. freedom of the press,
freedom of expression, freedom of associa-
tion, freedom to practice a trade or profession
and freedom of movement), and the abolition
of the death penalty. This Imperial Act influen-
ced Germany’s successive Constitutions.
During the German Empire (1871-1918), the
death penalty was mainly carried out for those
charged with high treason, with murder, with
murder or attempted murder of the sovereign.
Executions were carried out by guillotine.
State violence perpetrated by the Nazi regime
marked the future of the death penalty. The
Nazis made an extensive use of the death
penalty long before the start of the Second
World War. The number of crimes applicable
with the capital punishment increased. Seve-
ral tens of thousands, reportedly in excess of
30.000 persons, were executed by guillotine,
often after summary trials. In 1936, the guillo-
tine was made the ocial means for ordinary
crimes. From 1942, executions were carried
out by hanging. Executions were carried out
by firing squad for those charged with military
crimes.
The barbarity of the extermination camps and
the genocides left an indelible mark in German
society and changed their ability to tolerate
state violence and executions conducted by
the state.
West Germany or Federal Republic of Ger-
many
The last execution, by hanging, under senten-
ce of death in West Germany was carried out
in 1946.
In May 1949, the Basic Law (Constitution) of
the Federal Republic of Germany or “Grundge-
sezt” was adopted which abolished the death
penalty for all crimes. Article 102 of the new
Basic Law proclaimed that “Capital punishment
is abolished”. Interestingly, a far-right-wing par-
ty delegate of the constitutional convention
(Deutsche Partei) introduced the motion to
abolish the death penalty with the reported
intention of protecting Nazi ocers convic-
ted for war crimes from being executed. The
motion was then supported by the Social De-
mocrats who had historically been in favour of
abolition and had called for an end to capital
punishment during the Weimar Republic, insis-
ting on the importance to break this cruel and
inhuman practice which was carried out by the
Nazi Regime. This last argument eventually
convinced the Christian Democratic Union to
support the death penalty.
The Basic Law was adopted on 23 May 1949
and ratified by every State of the Federal Re-
public of Germany except Bavaria. Being a Fe-
deral State, each state had their laws and few
of these laws continued to provide for the ca-
pital punishment but, from the day the Basic
Law came into force, and because of the prin-
ciple of constitutional supremacy, the capital
punishment was completely abolished making
inoperative any other national provisions. La-
ter, on 20 January 1951, an amendment to the
Criminal Code replaced all death sentences
with life imprisonment.
There were strong domestic pressures to re-
tain the death penalty for murder and seve-
ral attempts to reintroduce it in the following
years but an amendment to the Constitution
required the support of two-thirds of the Par-
liament, a barrier that was never surmounted
to favour the retentionist bills. The successive
Christian Democrat Governments were divided
on the issue of the death penalty. Even Chan-
cellor Adenauer personally supported the ca-
26
HOW STATES ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
pital punishment, though he decided not to
support a reintroduction of the death penalty
given the fear that such a move would weaken
the Basic Law which could have endangered
the stability of Germany.
In 1959, the Committee in charge of the re-
form of the Criminal Code voted in favor of
maintaining the abolition by an overwhelmin-
gly majority, and the draft Criminal Code they
presented to the Parliament in 1960 maintai-
ned the abolition.
East Germany or Democratic Republic of
Germany
The death penalty in East Germany was ex-
tensively carried out especially on those who
were charged with political crimes. Among the
oences that carried the capital punishment
were treason, espionage, murder and sabota-
ge. East Germany was a fervent prosecutor of
Nazi war criminals.
After 1956, the use of the death penalty decli-
ned, due in part to the deStalinization process
started in the USSR by Nikita Khrushchev. No-
netheless, after 1964, death sentences were
mostly imposed on those found guilty of com-
mitting sexual oences ending in murder.
The Criminal Code, promulgated in 1968, con-
tinued to provide for the application of the ca-
pital punishment. However, executions were
rarely carried out after 1975 and death sen-
tences were systematically commuted. The
last execution was carried out in 1981, and
that same year the application of the death
penalty was reduced to military crimes. East
Germany was considered abolitionist for ordi-
nary crimes.
A working party was established in 1987 by the
Politburo to consider and work on the abolition
of the capital punishment in East Germany. The
working party recommended on 14 July 1987 to
abolish the death penalty and three days later,
on 17 July, the decision to abolish capital punis-
hment was made public by the authorities. The
abolition was presented as a symbol of the pro-
gress made by the state, and as not needed any-
more to fight violent crimes and the Nazi legacy.
The Democratic Republic of Germany became
the first country in Eastern Europe to abolish the
death penalty. The abolition also contributed to
normalize the relations with West Germany and
helped to prepare the scenario for the German
reunification.
Death Penalty after German Reunification
The reunification of East and West Germany
took place in 1990. Both FRG and DRG had
abolished the death penalty: West Germany in
1949 and East Germany in 1987.
Even though the capital punishment had been
abolished in the Constitution at the Federal le-
vel, some territories continued to mention the
death penalty in their laws without applying it.
For instance, the capital punishment was not
eliminated in law in West Berlin until 1990, and
it was not until 17 March 2016 that the Lander
of Hesse removed the death penalty from its
Constitution.
Following judgements of the European Court
of Human Rights (i.e. Soering v United Kingdom
and Germany, 1989), and along with fellow Eu-
ropean Union Members States, Germany refu-
ses to extradite prisoners to countries where
they could face the death penalty.
At the UNGA in 2007, Germany voted in favour
of the resolution calling for a moratorium on
executions worldwide with a view to abolis-
hing the death penalty and voted for all sub-
sequent death penalty resolutions adopted in
2008, 2010, 2012, 2014 and 2016. In August
1992, Germany became a party to the Second
27
HOW STATES ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
Optional Protocol to the ICCPR aiming at abo-
lition of the death penalty. The German De-
mocratic Republic had previously ratified the
Protocol in August 1990.
Germany is a member of ICDP’s Support Group.
GUATEMALA
Guatemala became abolitionist for ordi-
nary crimes in 2017 following a judgement
by the Constitutional Court of Guatemala.
No executions have been carried out since
2000 though there have been several at-
tempts to reinstate the death penalty.
Guatemala’s 1973 Penal
Code established the death
penalty for patricide, aggra-
vated murder, and assassi-
nation of the President or Vice President. The
death penalty is mandatory for rape which
results in death in cases where the victim is
under 10 years of age. It is also applicable for
cases of kidnapping where the victim is be-
low 12 years of age or above 60 years of age,
which results in the death or when the victim
suers serious physical injury or permanent
psychological trauma.
The 1985 Constitution, the current Guatemala
Constitution, abolished the death penalty for
women, people over 60 years of age, those
guilty of political crimes or related ordinary cri-
mes, those people extradited under the condi-
tion that the death penalty will not be applied
or in case where a conviction is based on cir-
cumstantial evidence. Additionally, the Cons-
titution established that the death sentence
can only be carried out after all appeals are ex-
hausted and gives the power to the Congress
to abolish the death penalty. The Supreme
Court has reportedly been given the power to
give pardons to those who were convicted af-
ter the Presidency stopped handing pardons.
Guatemala has experienced high rate of cri-
mes and there have been incidences of sus-
pected lynching of criminals in rural areas.
Before the Constitution came into force, Gua-
temala had ratified the American Convention
on Human Rights in 1978, which establishes
that no one can be arbitrarily deprived of his
life. The Guatemalan Congress approved di-
erent Decrees in 1994, 1995 and 1996 that
extended the scope of the capital punishment
to crimes of kidnapping not resulting in the
death of the victim, forced disappearance
and extrajudicial executions. The extension
of the scope of the death penalty took place
despite a 1983 ruling from the Inter-American
Court which confirmed that the extension of
the death penalty would violate the American
Convention.
Guatemala did not carry out executions bet-
ween 1984 and 1995. Executions resumed
in September 1996 when two prisoners were
executed by firing squad. Both inmates had
exhausted all appeals and the Supreme Court
of Guatemala had dismissed the petition made
by the Inter-American Commission on Human
Rights for precautionary measures and sus-
pension of the executions.
The next execution, the first one by lethal
injection, was carried out in February 1998,
again despite the petition for suspension by
the Inter-American Commission on Human
Rights. Guatemala had previously changed the
method of execution by law in 1996, following
strong international criticism regarding the
executions carried out in 1996. The three
executions that were carried out in 1996 and
1998 were broadcast on television. The Gover-
nment announced, given the strong protests
28
HOW STATES ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
from the international community, that execu-
tions would no longer be aired. However, two
executions were carried out in July 2000, and
were again broadcast on television. One of the
executions was botched as the person recei-
ved three lethal injections and had an agoni-
zing death after 18 minutes. These were the
last executions to be carried out.
In 2000, a law establishing procedures for the
consideration of clemency petitions by the
President was repealed. This created a legal
void that could have rendered any execution
unlawful under the American Convention on
Human Rights. In July 2002, Pope John Paul II
visited Guatemala and asked for the abolition
of the death penalty. Following the visit, Presi-
dent Alfonso Portillo expressed his intention to
establish a de facto moratorium on the use of
the death penalty and proposed to the Natio-
nal Assembly a draft law to abolish the death
penalty, which was dismissed in August 2002.
In 2003, the Supreme Court sent a death pe-
nalty abolition proposal to the Congress, but
this proposal was ignored. On 3 May 2005, this
death penalty abolition proposal was presen-
ted again to the Congress, but the proposals
did not go forward to a vote.
President Oscar Berger (from 2004 to 2007)
and President Alvaro Colom (from 2008 to
2011) repeatedly declared and demonstra-
ted their position against the death penalty.
In 2005, during the funeral of Pope John Paul
II, President Berger committed to abolish the
death penalty, insisting on its non-deterrence
eect.
In 2008, and again in 2010, President Colom ve-
toed laws voted by the Guatemalan Congress
that would have allowed the use of the death
penalty in the country giving the President the
power to pardon or commute death senten-
ces. Decree 06-2008 established a procedure
for those condemned to death to request par-
don from the President, but did not mention or
define the criteria to grant pardons, which was
in breach of a 2005 ruling of the Inter-Ameri-
can Court of Human Rights. President Colom
declared that the President should not decide
on the life of others and that the death penal-
ty did not have a deterrence eect. The 2010
Decree established a procedure for the gran-
ting of the Presidential pardon that was in line
with the ruling of the Inter-American Court.
On 23 January 2012, the criminal division of
the Supreme Court of Justice reviewed the ca-
ses of all prisoners under sentence of death
in the country and 53 Guatemalan prisoners’
death sentences were commuted to 50 years
of prison, leaving one person under sentence
of death. According to the President of the cri-
minal division, the convicted prisoners did not
have an adequate defence and their right to a
due process had been violated.
Two months later, in March 2012, the UN Hu-
man Rights Committee noted with satisfac-
tion those commutations as well as the im-
plementation of a de facto moratorium on the
death penalty in Guatemala since 2000, but
expressed concerns at bills introduced to re-
sume executions.
In October 2012, during the second cycle of
the UPR, Guatemala declared that no one was
under sentence of death and that the death
sentences for kidnapping, murder and rape
had been commuted to life imprisonment
through special applications for judicial review,
which was submitted by the Public Criminal
Defence Institute. Guatemala accepted the
recommendations to consider abolition by law
and to ratify the Second Optional Protocol to
the ICCPR aiming at the abolition of the death
penalty.
On 22 March 2016, the Constitutional Court
29
HOW STATES ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
of Guatemala declared unconstitutional the
provisions in Article 132 of the Penal Code,
providing for the mandatory death penalty for
certain circumstances of aggravated murder.
Moreover, following this judgment, the Cons-
titutional Court declared again, on 24 October
2017, that articles allowing for the death pe-
nalty in the Penal Code and in the Anti-Nar-
cotics Law were unconstitutional. The Court
based their judgement on the grounds that
the articles violated the principle of legality
and the prohibition, according to article 4.2 of
the American Convention on Human Rights, to
expand the scope of the death penalty. Both
laws included the “dangerousness” of the per-
petrator as an element to determine whether
the death penalty should be imposed or not,
which, according to the Court, violated the
principle of legality.
The judgement by the Constitutional Court
makes Guatemala abolitionist for ordinary cri-
mes, as the Military Code still provides for ca-
pital punishment.
However, draft proposals to resume executions
have been regularly introduced in the Con-
gress. In 2016, two draft laws were introduced
in the Congress: one aiming at facilitating the
resumption of executions, and the other one
(Draft law 5100 introduced in July) to abolish
the death penalty. The latter draft law received
joint approval by the three parliamentary com-
mittees on Human Rights, Justice Reform and
on Legislative and Constitutional Matters. Draft
law 5100 is pending before the Congress.
In 2008, during the UNGA Resolution calling
for a universal moratorium on the use of the
death penalty, Guatemala abstained, but vo-
ted in favour of the Resolutions in 2007, 2010,
2012, 2014 and 2016.
GUINEA
On 4 July 2016, the National Assembly of
Guinea approved a revised Criminal Code
abolishing the death penalty for ordinary
crimes which was ocially promulgated
on 26 October 2016 by President Alpha
Condé. In June 2017, the National Assem-
bly approved a new Military Code of Justi-
ce which reportedly came into force in De-
cember 2017.
Guinea declared its indepen-
dence from France on 2 Oc-
tober 1958 having Ahmed
Sékou Touré as dictatorial
President until his death in 1984. During this
period, several persons were sentenced to
death and many executions were carried out,
including many under political charges. After
the 1984 coup d’état, Guinea carried out exe-
cution in 2001, when several inmates facing
the death penalty were executed by firing
squad. Since 2002, Guinea began observing a
moratorium on executions, but continued to
sentence persons to death.
Reports suggest that three persons were sen-
tenced to death in 2008, 16 in 2011 and 2 in
2012. Unexpectedly, in July 2011, President
Alpha Condé declared that the death penalty
did not exist anymore in Guinea.
Guinea adopted its national Constitution in
2010, which included article 6 that established
that every human being “has [the] right to life
and to physical and moral integrity”. That same
year, Guinea was reviewed during the first cycle
of the UPR. The country rejected recommen-
dations to establish an ocial moratorium on
executions and to consider eventual abolition
of the death penalty. Similarly, during Guinea’s
second cycle of the UPR in January 2015, the
country rejected once again the recommenda-
30
HOW STATES ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
tions to ratify the Second Optional Protocol to
the ICCPR and to abolish the death penalty.
On 4 July 2016, the National Assembly voted
in favour of a revision of the Criminal Code
which abolished the death penalty for ordinary
crimes. The new Criminal Code was ocially
promulgated on 26 October 2016 by President
Alpha Condé, entering into force from that
date. It replaced the death penalty with life im-
prisonment that cannot exceed 30 years. The
then-Secretary of State in charge of Justice
and current Minister of Justice Cheick Sako,
had fought for this new Code as it is in line with
international treaties previously ratified by Gui-
nea, including the Rome Statute of the Interna-
tional Criminal Court. However, there were still
legal provisions that provided for death penal-
ty. The Military Code of Justice provided for the
death penalty for crimes that included treason,
desertion in presence of the enemy, capitula-
tion, destruction of ships or planes and revolt
at times of war or state of emergency.
On 31 May 2017, a new Military Criminal Code
was adopted by unanimity of the National As-
sembly that abolished the death penalty for
military crimes and which, reportedly, came
into force in December 2017.
As of today, Guinea has not signed the Se-
cond Optional Protocol to the ICCPR aiming
the abolition of the death penalty. There were
reportedly twelve prisoners under sentence of
death at the end of 2017.
In December 2016, Guinea voted in favour of
the UNGA Resolution asking for a global mora-
torium on the use of the Death Penalty for the
first time. The country had previously abstai-
ned in its voting for previous UNGA Resolutions.
HAITI
Haiti abolished the death penalty for all
crimes by constitutional amendment in
1987. The last known judicial execution
was carried out in 1972.
The death penalty was re-
tained in the country’s 1853
Penal Code after French co-
lonial rule ended in 1804.
The provisions of the Penal Code of 1953 in-
cluded the application of the death penalty
for criminal and political oences. During the
Presidency of Dr François Duvalier between
1957 and 1971, numerous death sentences
were imposed following summary trials, and
executions were frequently carried out in pu-
blic. Death sentences were also handed down
by courts martial under the special anti-Com-
munist law of 1969.
A 1985 Governmental decree abolished the
death penalty for political oences except high
treason. Following the collapse, in February
1986, of the Jean-Claude Duvalier Government,
which had been responsible for widespread hu-
man rights abuses, former Government ocials
were sentenced to death for human rights vio-
lations. However, all pending death sentences
were commuted under the new Constitution of
1987, which provided for abolition of the death
penalty. It had been approved in a national re-
ferendum on 29 March 1987 under President
Henri Namphy. Article 20 of the Constitution
provides that the death penalty is abolished
for all crimes. Following a military coup the fo-
llowing year, the 1987 Constitution was tempo-
rarily abolished, but the then-President, Leslie
Manigat, issued a decree on 12 July 1988 re-
arming abolition of the death penalty.
At the UNGA in 2007, Haiti voted in favour of
resolution calling for a moratorium on execu-
31
HOW STATES ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
tions worldwide with a view to abolishing the
death penalty, and voted for all subsequent
death penalty resolutions adopted in 2008,
2010, 2012, 2014 and 2016.
Haiti is not a party to the Second Optional Pro-
tocol to the ICCPR aiming at abolition of the
death penalty or the Protocol to the Ameri-
can Convention on Human Rights to Abolish
the Death Penalty. Haiti did not support the
recommendations made during its last UPR in
November 2016 to ratify the Second Optional
Protocol to the ICCPR.
KAZAKHSTAN
The last executions in Kazakhstan took
place on 12 May 2003. In December 2003,
President Nursultan Nazarbayev introdu-
ced an indefinite moratorium on execu-
tions by presidential decree, which stills
remains in place. Shortly after, on 1 Ja-
nuary 2004, life imprisonment was intro-
duced as an alternative to capital punish-
ment. The Constitution of the Republic of
Kazakhstan still retains the death penalty
as an exceptional punishment for two ca-
tegories of crimes: acts of terrorism entai-
ling loss of life and serious felonies com-
mitted during war time.
During the Soviet period,
the Kazakh Soviet Socialist
Republic approved dierent
Criminal Codes in 1922, 1926
and 1959. The last Criminal Code provided the
death penalty for 25 dierent crimes, including
crimes against the state, homicide and other
oences (mostly applicable in wartime). Howe-
ver, Article 22 of the 1959 Criminal Code defi-
ned the death penalty as an extraordinary pu-
nishment and envisioned its abolition in future.
This Criminal Code remained in force even af-
ter Kazakhstan declared its independence in
December 1991. However, between 1994 and
1997, there was a significance reduction in
the number of oences applicable for the ca-
pital punishment, an evolution in accordance
with the international trends and the judicial
reform approved by President Nursultan Na-
zarbayev in 1994.
In August 1995, Kazakhstan approved its na-
tional Constitution and the new Criminal Code
entered into force in January 1998, reducing
the number of oences carrying out the death
penalty in peacetime from 18 to 3 (premedita-
ted murder, aggravated murder, and genocide)
to which treason oences in time of war and
eight other military crimes were added. The
Criminal Code then envisaged the death penal-
ty for 18 crimes. In 1999, the Supreme Court
issued a resolution considering the death pe-
nalty not mandatory and this was made eec-
tive in 2004 when life imprisonment was intro-
duced as an alternative.
Before the moratorium on executions ente-
red into force in 2004, twenty two executions
were reportedly carried out in 2002 and at
least 3 other persons had also been executed
at the beginning of 2003. In December 2003,
the President introduced an indefinite morato-
rium on executions to be in place until “the full
abolition of the death penalty is resolved”.
Amendments to its Constitution and Criminal
Code were reportedly introduced. In 2002, Pre-
sident Nazarbayev signed two amendments
to the Criminal Code, prohibiting the death
penalty for minors, women and men over 65
years of age.
In 2007, Kazakhstan amended its Constitution,
restricting the application of the capital punis-
hment to the most serious crimes: the death
penalty was abolished for all crimes except te-
32
HOW STATES ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
rrorist acts that cause loss of human life and
exceptionally grave crimes committed during
wartime. According to the UN and Amnesty
International, Kazakhstan has become aboli-
tionist for ordinary crimes. However, the OSCE
and Penal Reform International have continued
to consider Kazakhstan as abolitionist de facto.
However, a regressive step was taken on 11
June 2014 when the Criminal Code was refor-
med and where, two articles that provided for
the death penalty were abrogated, while three
new articles providing for the capital punish-
ment were introduced. As a result, the number
of crimes punishable with the death penalty
has increased from 18 to 19. This reform ente-
red into force on 1 January 2018.
In the international arena, Kazakhstan has
supported the UNGA Resolutions calling for a
moratorium on the use of the death penalty
in December 2012, 2014 and 2016. Moreover,
Kazakhstan is a founding Member of the ICDP’s
Support Group, something that reinforces its
international commitment to eventually abo-
lish the death penalty.
At the end of 2017, one man remained under
sentence of death in Kazakhstan after a court
convicted and sentenced him to death in 2016
for terrorism-related oences.
KYRGYZSTAN
Kyrgyzstan abolished the death penalty
for all crimes by a 2006 amendment to the
Constitution followed by an amendment
to the Criminal Code in 2007. Abolition fo-
llowed a series of moratoria on executions
that had been in place since 1998, decla-
red and renewed by presidential decree,
as well as a 2002 policy decree and 2004
amendment to the Criminal Code reducing
the number of oences carrying the death
penalty. The last execution was carried
out in 1998.
Following independence
from the Soviet Union in
1991, the Constitution pro-
vided in Article 18 for the
death penalty in exceptional cases. In its initial
report to the UN Human Rights Committee in
July 2000, the Kyrgyzstan delegation reported
that there was a growing trend in Kyrgyz socie-
ty in favour of abolishing the death penalty. A
1997 bill led to abolition of capital punishment
for some crimes including economic crimes but
retained it for crimes resulting in loss of life. It
was supported by the President, Askar Akayev,
who issued a decree establishing a two-year
moratorium in 1998. The moratorium was ex-
tended four times, until President Kurmanbek
Bakiyev declared an indefinite moratorium in
2005 pending abolition. During the period of
the moratorium on executions, death senten-
ces continued to be handed down by the courts
which reportedly continued even after the abo-
litionist amendment to the constitution. The
number of death sentences carried out before
the moratorium was considered a state secret
and relatives were not informed of executions
that were subsequently carried out.
There was pressure from the international
community and civil society organisations on
Kyrgyzstan to abolish the death penalty. The
EU had consistently urged Kyrgyzstan to abo-
lish the death penalty and there were similar
calls at the OSCE Human Dimension Implemen-
tation Meetings. In December 2002, a coali-
tion of Kyrgyz and international human rights
organizations, including the Kyrgyz Bureau on
Human Rights and Rule of Law and the Kyrgyz
Committee for Human Rights, welcomed the
moratorium on executions and urged Presi-
dent Akayev to abolish the death penalty.
33
HOW STATES ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
A decree was issued in 2002 stating that one
of Kyrgyzstan’s objectives was the gradual re-
duction of the application of the death penalty
and its eventual abolition. The next step was
an introduction of amendments to the Crimi-
nal Code in 2004 which reduced the number of
capital oences from six to three. However, in
2005 and 2006, the Parliament rejected draft
laws and amendments to the Constitution pre-
pared by the Ministry of Justice and the Cons-
titutional Council as well as a bill for accession
to the Second Optional Protocol aiming at the
abolition of the death penalty. President Baki-
yev, who assumed oce in August 2005, had
announced before taking up his position that
he wished to exclude the death penalty from
the Constitution.
The following year, in November 2006, Presi-
dent Bakiyev signed a new Constitution sta-
ting “every person in the Kyrgyz Republic has
an inalienable right to life. No one can be de-
prived of life.” On 27 June 2007, President Ba-
kiyev signed a law amending the Criminal Code
and abolishing the death penalty, replacing it
with imprisonment for life. Following abolition,
the Supreme Court reviewed the cases of 133
prisoners under sentence of death and auto-
matically commuted their sentences to life im-
prisonment. The new Constitution, prohibiting
the death penalty, was later approved by pu-
blic referendum in June 2010. Recently, there
have been challenges to reinstate the death
penalty for crimes of sexual assault against
minors. However, senior ocials, including the
Ombudsman, have stood firm in favour of abo-
lition and suggested alternative punishments
for these crimes. As of today, Kyrgyzstan re-
mains abolitionist for all crimes.
At the UNGA in 2007, Kyrgyzstan voted in fa-
vour of resolution calling for a moratorium on
executions worldwide with a view to abolis-
hing the death penalty and voted for all sub-
sequent death penalty resolutions adopted in
2008, 2010, 2012, 2014 and 2016. Kyrgyzstan
did not co-sponsor the resolution on the mora-
torium in 2016 as it did in earlier resolutions.
In December 2010, Kyrgyzstan acceded to the
Second Optional Protocol to the ICCPR aiming
at the abolition of the death penalty.
MADAGASCAR
Republic of Madagascar (Madagascar)’s
last execution was carried out in 1958,
just before its independence. The aboli-
tion of the death penalty was voted by the
National Assembly on 10 December 2014
and was made possible by a combination
of dierent factors: the signature in Sep-
tember 2012 by President Rajoelina to the
Second Optional Protocol to the ICCPR,
the pressure and campaign led by human
rights organizations and international ins-
titutions who collaborated with Govern-
ment Ministries, the political climate, the
proactive participation by the National As-
sembly and a strong political leadership.
One of the reasons explai-
ning Madagascar’s reten-
tion of the death penalty for
more than 55 years since
its independence, even if never implemented,
was the fragility of the state’s infrastructu-
re, mostly in the south of the country. In the
southern rural regions, the Government had
historically lacked control which had been a
source of political instability since the inde-
pendence. The death penalty was seen as a
symbolic embodiment of the State’s power.
The crimes reportedly punishable by death, prior
to abolition of the death penalty, were murder
and other oences not resulting in death, such
as armed robbery, arson, kidnapping, and tortu-
34
HOW STATES ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
re. In addition, the death penalty was also provi-
ded for a number of special and military oen-
ces such as treason, espionage, desertion, and
sabotage or mutiny in times of war.
Meanwhile, courts reportedly continued to
hand down death sentences even though tho-
se sentenced to death were systematically
commuted to sentences of life imprisonment
with hard labour, the second-harshest punish-
ment in the Penal Code.
In 2005, a bill was introduced in the Senate and
another initiative was led by the Ministry of Jus-
tice in 2006. However, both initiatives never re-
ached the plenary of the National Assembly. In
2007, Madagascar voted in favour of UNGA Re-
solution calling for universal moratorium.
Following the 2009 coup d’état and dissolu-
tion of the Parliament under transitional Pre-
sident Andry Rajoelina, Madagascar plunged
into a major political crisis. The possibility of
abolishing the death penalty disappeared,
even though the Minister of Justice and other
authorities had repeatedly stated that the Go-
vernment was broadly in favour of abolition.
Major impediments included the high crime
rates in rural areas and the political instability.
Reports suggest that President Rajoelina ap-
peared to show more willingness to consider
abolition at the international stage as an at-
tempt reportedly to improve the image of his
Government and to head o the threat of
suspension of international aid and economic
partnerships.
In 2010, during Madagascar’s first UPR, the de-
legation gave ambivalent statements to the
recommendations to establish an ocial mora-
torium on executions and to abolish the death
penalty. Madagascar’s delegation stated that
“the conditions for the immediate abolition of
capital punishment do not yet exist. A signifi-
cant proportion of the population and a majo-
rity of Members of Parliament believe that the
deterrent eect of maintaining the death pe-
nalty is still a useful means of combating inse-
curity” (A/HRC/14/13/Add.1). The delegation
explained that the Government wanted to con-
duct awareness-raising campaigns on abolition,
before presenting a new bill.
Madagascar’s new Constitution came into force
on 11 December 2010 and shortly thereafter,
the country co-sponsored for the first time the
UNGA Resolution calling for a global moratorium
on the use of the death penalty. Madagascar has
always voted in favour of the Resolution since
the first Resolution in 2007, and until 2016, and
started to co-sponsor the Resolution in 2010.
However, death sentences continued to be im-
posed in Madagascar, and according to ocial
figures, there were 58 inmates under sentence
of death at the end of September 2011.
On 24 September 2012, President Rajoelina
signed the Second Optional Protocol to the
ICCPR, committing Madagascar under interna-
tional law to refrain from carrying out execu-
tions and to abolish capital punishment within
a reasonable period. The ICCPR-2OP was rati-
fied in 2017.
Several human rights organizations and insti-
tutions played crucial roles in the abolitionist
process, for instance the UN Oce of the High
Commissioner for Human Rights, who worked
closely with the Minister of Justice and the Pre-
sident of the National Assembly of Madagas-
car, in drafting the death penalty abolition law.
After the 2013 elections, Hery Rajaonarimam-
pianina succeeded Rajoelina becoming the
first post-coup, democratically elected Presi-
dent in January 2014.
In 2014, a day-long event was organized on 10
October on the occasion of the World Day Aga-
35
HOW STATES ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
inst the Death Penalty. The event was attended
by human rights activists, the Ministry of Justice,
over 40 National Assembly members, religious
leaders and representatives from the Swiss
and French Governments, the European Union
and the African Union. The concept of “fihava-
nana” -meaning peace, solidarity, harmony and
human dignity, a central concept of the culture
of Madagascar- was evoked arguing that justice
should protect human life, not end it. The mee-
ting culminated with the Antananarivo Decla-
ration, a road map aiming to legally abolish the
death penalty. The Antananarivo Declaration
was, in the view of many observers, a milestone
and it helped to prepare the National Assembly
to vote in favor of the abolition.
Ten days after this event, the bill to end the ca-
pital punishment was discussed in the National
Assembly. At the same time, Madagascar was
being assessed at the second cycle of the UPR
where the country accepted the recommenda-
tions to abolish the death penalty and to ratify
the Second Optional Protocol to the ICCPR, ai-
ming at the abolition of the death penalty, which
it had previously signed in 2012.
Finally, on 10 December 2014, Madagascar’s
National Assembly adopted the bill abolishing
the death penalty, replacing it with life impri-
sonment with hard labour. The Penal Code
amendment, introduced by member of the Na-
tional Assembly Jean Max Rakotomamojy, was
voted unanimously by all the members of the
National Assembly.
The Government did not present any com-
ments or objections to the abolition bill and
Madagascar promulgated the law abolishing
the death penalty in January 2015. Nonethe-
less, campaigners for abolition of the death
penalty continued to push for Madagascar’s
ratification of the Second Optional Protocol to
the ICCPR. Madagascar ratified the ICCPR-2OP
on 21 September 2017.
MEXICO
Mexico abolished the death penalty in
2005 for all crimes in law. Later, the same
year, the country abolished capital punish-
ment by a Constitutional Amendment. The
last execution for ordinary crimes was ca-
rried out in Puebla State in 1937. The last
execution was that of a soldier, under the
Military Code of Justice, which was carried
out in 1961.
Moves to abolish capital
punishment in Mexico are
grounded in strong abolitio-
nist trends in South and Cen-
tral America in the nineteenth century. The 1857
Constitution specifically prohibited the death
penalty for political crimes at a time when the-
re was widespread condemnation of the death
penalty in the media. This signaled a break with
the past when the death penalty had been
used to eliminate political opponents. However,
Mexico’s Constitution retained the death penal-
ty for ordinary crimes for a long time. Article 22
of the 1917 Political Constitution of the United
Mexican States prohibited the death penalty
for political oences in Article 22, but retained
the punishment for murder and other criminal
as well as some military oences.
The death penalty included in the 1871 Penal
Code was removed from the 1930 Federal Pe-
nal Code and subsequent Penal Codes. Most
Mexican states had abolished capital punish-
ment by the end of the nineteenth century.
The Code of Military Justice did, however, retain
the death penalty for specific oences, and
people were occasionally sentenced to death
under its provisions. In practice, Presidents
routinely used their constitutional powers to
ensure commutation of a death sentence to
long-term imprisonment. This happened as late
36
HOW STATES ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
as November 2003 after a military court had
sentenced a man to death for murder.
In April 1988, a Presidential candidate annou-
nced he might consider holding a referendum
on reintroducing the death penalty, but the
idea met with widespread resistance from
the public, Catholic bishops, political leaders,
senators and prominent lawyers and the refe-
rendum was never held.
Mexican and international human rights orga-
nizations continued to urge the Mexican Go-
vernment to totally repeal the death penalty in
law. The year 2005 was decisive for abolition.
On 21 April 2005, the only remaining provision
in Mexican criminal law permitting the death
penalty was abolished. The Mexican Chamber
of Deputies unanimously voted to reform the
Military Penal Code and replaced the death pe-
nalty with prison terms of 30 to 60 years for
serious oences.
To reinforce abolition at constitutional level,
the Mexican House of Representatives appro-
ved a constitutional reform bill in June 2005
by 412 votes in favour and two abstentions
which explicitly prohibited the death penalty
for all crimes. President Vicente Fox signed
the bill amending Articles 14 and 22 of the
Constitution of the United Mexican States and
it came into force on 9 December 2005. The
following day, President Fox described the pu-
blication of the constitutional changes in the
ocial gazette as “historic”, adding: “Mexico
shares the opinion that capital punishment is
a violation of human rights”.
There were some attempts to reinstate the
death penalty in the face of mounting violen-
ce and kidnappings. In December 2008, the
Governor of northern Coahuila State sponso-
red a bill in the Mexican Congress to reinsta-
te the death penalty for kidnappers resorting
to murder. One political party advocated the
death penalty in all homicide cases. However,
moves to reintroduce the death penalty were
strongly opposed by human rights activists,
the Roman Catholic Church and some politi-
cians and did not succeed.
Since 2000, the Government has tried to pro-
vide legal assistance to hundreds of Mexicans
under sentence of death in the USA. The In-
ternational Court of Justice upheld Mexico’s
appeal requesting the USA in 2004 to review
the cases of 51 Mexican nationals under sen-
tence of death as the USA failed to meet its
obligations under the 1963 Vienna Convention
on Consular Relations by not facilitating their
access to Mexico’s consular ocials. Mexico
does not extradite criminal suspects to the
USA without an undertaking that they will not
face a death sentence or life imprisonment
without the possibility of parole.
In 1981, Mexico became a party to the Inter-
American Convention on Human Rights, which
bars countries that have abolished the death
penalty from reinstating it. In September
2007, Mexico acceded to the Second Optio-
nal Protocol to the ICCPR aiming at the aboli-
tion of the death penalty and the Protocol to
the American Convention on Human Rights to
Abolish the Death Penalty.
At the UNGA in 2007, Mexico voted in favour
of the resolution calling for a moratorium on
executions worldwide with a view to abolis-
hing the death penalty, and voted in favor of
all subsequent resolutions on worldwide mo-
ratoria in 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014 and 2016.
To show its international commitment, Mexico
is a Member State of ICDP’s Support Group.
37
HOW STATES ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
MONGOLIA
Then President Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj sys-
tematically commuted death sentences
and announced a moratorium on execu-
tions in January 2010, underlining the need
to follow the worldwide trend towards abo-
lition. Mongolia undertook an international
commitment to abolish the death penalty
by its March 2012 accession to the Second
Optional Protocol to the ICCPR, and abolis-
hed capital punishment in law in July 2017.
The last execution was carried out in 2008.
The death penalty was in-
cluded in the country’s first
Criminal Code of 1926. The
death penalty was applica-
ble for 8 oences under the 1961 Penal Code
allowing 171 people to be sentenced to death
between 1980 and 1990, of whom 118 were
executed. The collapse of the Soviet Union
marked the start of democratic reform in 1990,
when a multi-party system was established.
A new constitution was promulgated in 1992,
which, in Article 16(1), provided for the death
penalty for serious crimes. A new Criminal Code
was enacted in 2002 retaining the death pe-
nalty for 59 listed crimes, although it excluded
women, men over 60 years of age and all those
below 18 years of age. There was a reported rise
in the number of death sentences handed down
after the promulgation of the new constitution.
Executions were a regular occurrence until 2008
when the last execution took place. Secrecy su-
rrounded executions - families did not receive
prior notification or information about where
those executed were buried.
President Elbegdorj was elected in June 2009
and began systematically commuting death
sentences. A crucial step towards abolition
was taken on 14 January 2010 when the Pre-
sident announced an executive moratorium
on all executions and commuted death sen-
tences of all those on death row who had
appealed to him for clemency to 30-year pri-
son terms. Reflecting on the worldwide trend
towards abolition, President Elbegdorj told the
BBC: “The majority of the world’s countries
have chosen to abolish the death penalty. We
should follow this path.”
Legislative action was required to consolidate
steps towards abolition. In a landmark speech
to the State Great Khural (Parliament) in January
2010, the President listed eight reasons for re-
jecting the death penalty in law, including the
irreparable nature of public error, historical use
of the death penalty as a means to eect poli-
tical purges, the international community’s calls
for universal abolition of the death penalty and
the demonstrable failure of the death penalty to
have a deterrent eect. He said: “There are ins-
tances where the death penalty was imposed
on an innocent individual instead of the actual
oender. Without fully abolishing it, we cannot
completely end miscarriages of justice for this
form of penalty.” As a sign of its new policy, Mon-
golia voted for the first time, on 21 December
2010, at the UNGA in favour of the resolution
calling for a moratorium on executions having
previously voted against such resolutions.
The death penalty was widely discussed in
Mongolia among judges, lawyers, parliamen-
tarians and NGOs, including an association
of victims. Mongolia’s National Human Rights
Commission carried out studies on the use of
the death penalty on its own and with Amnes-
ty International Mongolia. The National Human
Rights Commission consistently advocated
abolition and cited conclusions of the UN Spe-
cial Rapporteur on torture following his 2005
visit to Mongolia as well as of the UN human
rights treaty bodies which called for abolition
of the death penalty. In January 2011, then
ICDP President Federico Mayor wrote to the
Members of the Parliamentary Committee
38
HOW STATES ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
on Security and Foreign Aairs to support
Mongolia’s ratification of the Second Optional
Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil
and Political Rights aiming at abolition of the
death penalty.
Gungaa Bayasgalan, State Secretary in the Mi-
nistry of Justice and Home Aairs told the (UN)
Human Rights Committee on 21 March 2011,
“We want to introduce a culture of supporting
the abolishment of the death penalty” adding
that this would require the President to play an
essential role as such issues took time. On 12
October 2012, the Legal Policy Adviser to the
President condemned the death penalty and
called on other countries to reject it.
Overcoming considerable opposition from legis-
lators, on 5 January 2012, the Mongolian Parlia-
ment voted for a bill that aimed to end the death
penalty by approving a decision to accede to the
Second Optional Protocol to the ICCPR. Mongo-
lia acceded to the Second Optional Protocol
without reservations on 13 March 2012.
In a speech, which President Tsakhiagiin Elbe-
gdorj delivered to the European Parliament on
16 June 2015, he stressed that “[t]he founda-
tion of justice is a respect for human dignity,
central to which is the sanctity of human life.
Under no circumstances is capital punishment
acceptable (…) Capital punishment is ineec-
tive and barbaric.”
The country was assessed under the UPR in
early May 2015 (A/HRC/WG.6/22/L.4) and
Mongolia accepted the recommendations to
complete the legal abolition of the death pe-
nalty in September 2015.
Less than three months later, on 3 December
2015, the Mongolian Parliament voted and
adopted a new Criminal Code which abolished
the death penalty for all crimes. The new Cri-
minal Code entered into force on 1 July 2017
and eliminated all reference to capital punis-
hment. Mongolia became the 105th country
to abolish the death penalty, concluding the
process started in 2010.
At the UNGA in 2007, Mongolia voted against
the resolution calling for a moratorium on exe-
cutions worldwide with a view to abolishing
the death penalty (A/RES/62/149). It did the
same in 2008 but voted in favour of UN reso-
lutions calling for a worldwide moratorium in
2010, 2012, 2014 and 2016. Mongolia was a
co-sponsor of the Resolution on a Moratorium
on the Use of the Death Penalty at the UN Ge-
neral Assembly on 20 December 2012, on 18
December 2014 and on 19 December 2016.
Mongolia was a co-founder of the group of
Member-States that worked together to in-
crease support for the 2016 UNGA Resolution.
The country joined Argentina and the EU in
establishing an Alliance for Torture-free Tra-
de, which aims to end trade in goods used for
capital punishment and torture. The Alliance
was launched on 18 September 2017 and 58
countries adopted a political declaration du-
ring the event.
Mongolia is a founding Member-State of the
Support Group of the ICDP.
NEW ZEALAND
New Zealand abolished the death penal-
ty for murder in 1961. The country be-
came abolitionist for all crimes with the
enactment of the Abolition of the Death
Penalty Act of 1989. This enactment abo-
lished capital punishment which was still
applicable for treason and some military
oences.
39
HOW STATES ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
Capital punishment first
appeared in a codified form
when New Zealand became
a British territory in 1840,
and was first carried out in in 1842. A total of
85 executions were carried out between then
and 1957. All executions were by hanging and
were held in public until 1862.
All but one of the 85 people executed were
men. The only woman was Minnie Dean, found
guilty of murdering a child in 1895. All but one
of those executed were convicted of murder;
the exception was Hamiora Pere, who was exe-
cuted for treason in 1869. The last execution
to be carried out was that of Walter James Bol-
ton, who was found guilty of poisoning his wife.
He was executed on 18 February 1957.
The Labour Party opposed the death penalty
and commuted all death sentences to life impri-
sonment after it was elected to oce in 1935.
In 1941, the mandatory penalty for murder was
changed from death to life imprisonment with
hard labour. The death penalty continued to
apply for treason and piracy.
The National Party restored the death penal-
ty for murder after it was elected to power in
1949. Between 1951 and 1957, 18 men were
sentenced to death, of whom eight executions
were carried out. The executions of Harry Whi-
teland (1953) and Edward Te Whiu (1955) were
controversial as they raised questions about
post-war trauma, intellectual and developmen-
tal disability as factors for leniency.
After the Labour Party was re-elected in 1957,
it commuted the sentences of persons convic-
ted of murder to life imprisonment but took no
steps to abolish the death penalty. A National
Committee for Abolition of the Death Penalty
was established in November 1956, with bran-
ches in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and
Dunedin.
The National Party regained power in the 1960
elections. The Minister of Justice, Hon. Ralph
Hanan, was an opponent of the death penal-
ty, while Hon Jack Marshall, then Deputy Prime
Minister, was a strong supporter for retention.
In 1961, the Parliament held a free vote on an
amendment to the Crimes Bill abolishing the
death penalty for murder. Ten Members of Par-
liament belonging to the National Party cros-
sed the floor to vote with the Labour Party and
the abolition amendment was voted by 41 to
30 votes. Capital punishment was retained for
treason until the Abolition of the Death Penalty
Act in 1989.
At the international level, New Zealand was one
of nine countries in 2007 to co-author a world-
wide initiative to ban all executions. This led to
the country being a founding member of the
cross-regional taskforce for the biennial Third
Committee resolution on ‘A moratorium on the
use of the death penalty’, which continues to
be adopted biennially by the UN General Assem-
bly. New Zealand has worked with like-minded
countries to maintain progress made towards a
global moratorium, including by defending such
issues as ending the use of the death penalty
for children in line with the Convention on the
Rights of the Child. The country is also a strong
supporter of UN Human Rights Council resolu-
tions relating to the death penalty.
Moreover, New Zealand has been party to the
Second Optional Protocol to the ICCPR aiming
at the abolition of the death penalty since 22
February 1990. New Zealand is an Observer
State of ICDP’s Support Group.
PHILIPPINES, the
The Philippines was the first country in
Asia to abolish the death penalty for all
40
HOW STATES ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
crimes in June 2006, following actions
taken by President Gloria Macapagal-Arro-
yo and the Philippines Congress. The 1987
Constitution abolished the death penalty
but capital punishment was reinstated in
December 1993. The last execution was
carried out in 2000.
After the overthrow of the
Government of President
Ferdinand Marcos in 1986,
the new President Corazon
Aquino formally restored democracy.
A new constitution was promulgated in 1987,
which abolished the death penalty on the
grounds that it infringed human rights. This
move made the Philippines the first country
in Asia to abolish the death penalty for all cri-
mes. Following this, President Corazon Aquino
announced the mass commutation of death
penalties in 1987. All death sentences were
reduced to reclusion perpetua or life imprison-
ment.
However, Article III section 9 of the new cons-
titution allowed the death penalty to be re-
instated by Congress “for compelling reasons
involving heinous crimes".
Public concern about spiraling crime rates
and mounting pressure for restoration of the
death penalty prompted President Fidel Ra-
mos and the Philippines Congress to reintro-
duce the death penalty in December 1993
when “Republic Act 7659” was signed into
law, taking eect on 1 January 1994. The Act
allowed the death penalty to be imposed for
46 separate oences, including non−violent
crimes, 23 of the oences incurring a man-
datory death sentence. By 2002, there were
52 oences carrying the death penalty. The
Philippines became a country with one of the
highest rates of death sentences in the world.
Approximately 900 prisoners were under sen-
tence of death in 1999, the year that execu-
tions resumed after an interval of 23 years.
A powerful Task Force was formed to campaign
against the death penalty in 1997. Its mem-
bers were the Free Legal Assistance Group
(FLAG), the Coalition Against the Death Penal-
ty (CADP), the Catholic Bishops Conference
and Amnesty International. The Roman Catho-
lic Church appealed to President Joseph Es-
trada who, although a supporter of the death
penalty, recognized possible serious flaws
in some trials and the possibility of innocent
people being under sentence of death. The
last execution was carried out in 2000, and in
December that year, the President imposed a
one−year moratorium on executions, commu-
ted all death sentences imposed by the lower
courts and called on Congress to review how
the death penalty was implemented.
The Philippines is a party since 1987 to the
(first) Optional Protocol to the ICCPR which
provides for complaints of individual petitio-
ners about alleged breaches of their rights
under the ICCPR. In October 2000, the UN Hu-
man Rights Committee expressed its concern
about the executions of two men whose ca-
ses it was considering. The Committee held
“that the State committed a grave breach of
its obligations under the Protocol by putting
the alleged victims to death before the Com-
mittee had concluded its consideration of the
communication” (Piandiong et al v The Philippi-
nes, Communication No. 869/1999, 19 Octo-
ber 2000,CCPR/C/70/D/869/1999).
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo announced
in 2001 another moratorium on executions. A
few months later, following a spate of kidnap-
pings, she threatened to reverse her position,
saying executions would resume. Capital punis-
hment was widely debated, including in Con-
gress, but no executions took place. In 2001,
proponents of capital punishment introduced
41
HOW STATES ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
a bill to extend its scope even further, while
the following year, in 2002, both senators and
Members of the House of Representatives pre-
pared bills to repeal the death penalty.
NGOs continued to campaign and FLAG repre-
sented individuals charged with oences ca-
rrying the death penalty. The Philippines Com-
mission on Human Rights strongly opposed
re−imposition of the death penalty. Religious
groups were divided: the Philippine Evangeli-
cal Churches rearmed their support for the
death penalty, but the Catholic Bishops’ Con-
ference of the Philippines renewed its appeals
for abolition of the death penalty.
On 15 April 2006, on the occasion of Easter,
President Arroyo announced a policy to com-
mute death sentences to life imprisonment,
aecting over 1,200 prisoners under sentence
of death. In a letter sent to Senate President
Franklin M. Drilon, the President said there was
an urgent need for “abolishing death penalty as
its imposition was shown to have not served
its principal purpose of eectively deterring
the commission of heinous crimes” and that
abolition would remedy the findings that death
penalty is anti-poor as it was often the under-
privileged who could not aord legal represen-
tation and who were sentenced to death.
The Philippines Congress took swift action and
on 6 June 2006, it passed bills abolishing the
death penalty. The Senate voted 16-0, with
one abstention, and the House of Representa-
tives voted 119 for and 20 against. President
Arroyo issued a statement saying: “We cele-
brate the victory of life as I thank Congress for
its immediate action in abolishing the death
penalty law. But make no mistake about it, the
abolition of the death penalty will be comple-
mented by a stricter and sterner enforcement
of the law on all fronts.” The law entered into
eect on 24 June 2006, with President Gloria
Macapagal-Arroyo signing ‘An Act prohibiting
the imposition of the death penalty in the Phi-
lippines’ (RA 9346).
President Rodrigo Duterte, who was elected
in the elections in June 2016, came into oce
with a commitment to fight against the drug
menace as he feared that the Philippines was
a “narco state”. Though President Duterte
mentioned that he was in favor of the death
penalty, the reinstatement of capital punish-
ment did not appear to be a priority for him as
it did not feature in his campaign or in his first
state of the nation discourse. In July 2016, the
ruling party proposed a bill to reintroduce the
death penalty for a wide range of oences (in-
cluding rape, arson, drug tracking and pos-
session of small amounts of drugs). Following
debates, the number of oences proposed for
application of the death penalty was reduced
and the draft law focused on drug-related cri-
mes. On 7 March 2017, the draft law, House
Bill 4727, which sought “to reinstate the pu-
nishment of death for drug-related heinous
crimes”, was adopted by the House of Repre-
sentatives with 217 votes in favour, 54 aga-
inst and one abstention. The draft law was
sent to the Senate for final approval. At the
time of printing this publication, the draft law
has not been discussed at the Senate and so,
the law has not come into eect.
At the UNGA in 2007, the Philippines voted in
favour of the resolution calling for a morato-
rium on executions worldwide with a view to
abolishing the death penalty and voted for
subsequent death penalty resolutions adop-
ted in 2008, 2010, 2012 and 2014. For the
first time, the Philippines abstained in its vote
for the Resolution in 2016.
The Philippines is a founding Member of ICDP’s
Support Group.
42
HOW STATES ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
PORTUGAL
Portugal was the first major European cou-
ntry to abolish the death penalty for mur-
der in 1867 and to refuse its use even be-
fore the abolition in law was published. The
last registered execution reportedly was
carried out in 1846 or 1849.
The capital punishment was
gradually abolished in Portu-
gal. The abolitionist process
started in 1852 under the re-
ign of Queen Maria II. Several changes in the law
were incorporated to make the abolition of the
death penalty for political oenses possible.
The second stage of the process took place
during the reign of King Luis, which abolished
the death penalty for ordinary crimes in 1867
for Portugal and in 1870 for all the colonies.
Later, in 1911, the death penalty was abolis-
hed for all crimes following the adoption of the
Military Justice Code which abolished the ca-
pital punishment for military crimes. However,
when Portugal entered the First World War in
1916 the death penalty was reestablished for
military crimes in war time until 1918.
Once the First and the Second World Wars
ended, and after the Revolução dos Cravos in
1974, the death penalty was definitively abo-
lished for all crimes in 1976 with the approval
of the Constitution of the Portuguese Repu-
blic whose article 24 states that "Human life
shall be inviolable. The death penalty shall not
exist under any circumstances."
In October 1986, Portugal acceded to Protocol
no. 6 to the European Convention on Human
Rights, providing for abolition of the death pe-
nalty in peacetime. In October 2003, Portugal
also ratified Protocol no. 13 to the Convention,
abolishing the death penalty in all circumstan-
ces.
Furthermore, in 1990, Portugal became a party
to the Second Optional Protocol to the Inter-
national Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,
aiming at the abolition of the death penalty.
At the UNGA in 2007, Portugal voted in favour
of the resolution calling for a moratorium on
executions worldwide with a view to abolis-
hing the death penalty and voted for all sub-
sequent death penalty resolutions adopted in
2008, 2010, 2012, 2014 and 2016.
Portugal was a referent for dierent Euro-
pean countries since some of them followed
its steps and abolished the death penalty as it
happened in France in 1981, Spain in 1995 and
the United Kingdom in 1998. In 2017, Portugal
marked the 150th anniversary of the aboli-
tion of the death penalty with a considerable
number of public events by the Government,
Universities, Municipalities and Civil Society. In
an article, Augusto Santos Silva, Portuguese
Minister of Foreign Aairs, stressed two main
ideas: the inviolability of human life and insis-
ting on the fact that no circumstance justifies
the application of the death penalty, torture
or any other cruel or inhuman punishment, in
line with articles 24 and 25 of the Portuguese
Constitution
2
. He also stated that the country
had three main ways to continue fighting aga-
inst the death penalty in the world: Portugal’s
example as an abolitionist country; the mis-
sion of dierent international organizations
like the European Union, the Council of Europe,
the General Assembly of the United Nations,
2.
Augusto Santos Silva, “Portugal, protagonista da luta contra a pena de norte”, Diário de Noticias, 1 July 2017. Availa-
ble from: https://www.dn.pt/opiniao/opiniao-dn/convidados/interior/portugal-protagonista-da-luta-contra-a-pena-de-
morte-8605272.html
43
HOW STATES ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
etc.; and the Human Rights as an ever-present
topic in Portugal’s bilateral relations, aiming
to spread all over the world the essential re-
levancy of the respect for the human being.
To arm its international commitment to abo-
lish the death penalty, Portugal is a founding
Member State of ICDP’s Support Group.
RWANDA
In 2007, Rwanda became the first country
in the Great Lakes region in Africa to abo-
lish the death penalty for all crimes. This
happened in the aftermath of the 1994
genocide in which an estimated 800,000
Rwandans were murdered. The last execu-
tions, reportedly 22 executions, were ca-
rried out in 1998.
The death penalty existed
under the Penal Code for a
wide range of criminal oen-
ces and the State Security
Court had jurisdiction over cases of a political
nature, including oences carrying the death
penalty. Executions were occasionally carried
out. Between 1969 and 1974, 13 out of 120
people sentenced to death were executed. In
1982, President Juvenal Habyarimana commu-
ted two death sentences imposed by the Sta-
te Security Court in 1981, which had denied
the defendants access to lawyers. However
two months later, in September 1982, the Go-
vernment signaled its intention to retain the
death penalty when 43 executions were ca-
rried out, mostly for murder. In July 1987, Pre-
sident Habyarimana commuted all confirmed
death sentences to life imprisonment, a move
that aected 537 prisoners. The President
then regularly commuted death sentences
Following the 1994 genocide, the Rwandan
authorities tried those charged with involve-
ment in the genocide in domestic courts. In
1998, 22 executions were carried out on char-
ges of leading the genocide. These were the
last judicial executions to be carried out in
Rwanda, although death sentences continued
to be imposed until 2003.
Eventually, involvement of the international
community in establishing accountability for
the genocide triggered Rwanda’s successful
move towards abolition of the death penalty.
In November 1994, the UN Security Council
established the International Criminal Tribunal
for Rwanda (ICTR) to bring the perpetrators of
genocide and other serious violations of inter-
national humanitarian law to justice. The death
penalty was excluded as punishment notwiths-
tanding strong opposition from Rwanda, which
at the time had a seat in the Security Council.
Rwanda’s representative argued in the Securi-
ty Council that the draft clause excluding the
death penalty as punishment in the court’s pro-
posed statute was “not conducive to national
reconciliation in Rwanda”.
The subsequent UN Security Council decision
to exclude the death penalty as punishment
from the ICTR statute presented a dilemma for
the Government: a fundamental injustice would
occur if suspects tried in domestic courts were
sentenced to death, while the many thousands
of genocide suspects living abroad, some held
by the ICTR, including alleged ringleaders, recei-
ved a sentence of life imprisonment as a maxi-
mum punishment. Besides, Governments who
detained those suspected of leading or partici-
pating in the genocide who had fled abroad, as
well as the ICTR, refused to extradite to Rwan-
da suspects they had detained, fearing their
execution. These Governments and the ICTR
were also concerned about the lack of fair trial
guarantees which had been a long-standing
concern in death penalty cases. These con-
44
HOW STATES ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
cerns first prompted the enactment, in 2007,
of a special transfer law prohibiting execution
of suspects due to be transferred from the ICTR
to local Rwandan courts. Steps to abolish the
death penalty for all crimes quickly followed.
In October 2006, the political bureau of the
ruling party strongly recommended abolition
and on 19 January 2007, the cabinet approved
plans to abolish the death penalty. The Justice
Minister, Tharcisse Karugama, said that pro-
longed public consultation showed that most
Rwandans opposed capital punishment. Sub-
sequently, the Chamber of Deputies on 8 June
2007, and the Senate on 25 July 2007 passed
bills abolishing the death penalty. The Law Rela-
ting to the Abolition of the Death Penalty ente-
red into force on 25 July 2007 when it was rati-
fied by President Paul Kagame and published in
the Ocial Gazette of Rwanda. The coutry abo-
lished the death penalty for all crimes and re-
moved the death penalty from the Penal Code.
President Kagame observed that his country’s
violent history of genocide was a main fac-
tor behind abolition of the death penalty. All
death sentences –of some 600 inmates under
sentence of death– were commuted to life im-
prisonment. Louise Arbour, then UN High Com-
missioner for Human Rights and a former Pro-
secutor of the ICTR, welcomed the decision,
saying: “A country that has suered the ulti-
mate crime and whose people’s thirst for jus-
tice is still far from quenched has decided to
forego a sanction that should have no place in
any society that claims to value human rights
and the inviolability of the person. Rwanda is
demonstrating leadership by action.”
In November 1999, the Government hosted a
meeting of the African Commission on Human
and Peoples’ Rights, which adopted its first re-
solution on the death penalty, urging States to
consider observing a moratorium on executions.
In September 2009, the first Regional Conferen-
ce on the Death Penalty was organized in Kigali,
Rwanda, by the WGDP the African Commission
on Human and Peoples’ Rights to support the
abolition of the death penalty in Central, Eastern
and Southern Africa. Furthermore, in October
2011, Rwanda hosted a regional conference on
the abolition of death penalty which ICDP Com-
missioner Ms Duvivier attended.
In 2013, Rwanda’s Minister of Justice Johns-
ton Busingye participated during the 5th World
Congress on the Abolition of the Death Penal-
ty in Madrid (Spain) and underlined Rwanda’s
commitment to the right to life saying that “We
came to the view that death could never serve
as an instrument of justice even in the case of
the most heinous imaginable crimes, and we
have not regretted that decision for a moment.
Abolishing the death penalty was an important
step forward in the process of reconciliation”
As part of the 1993 Arusha peace accords,
which have constitutional force in Rwanda,
the Government undertook to ratify the Se-
cond Optional Protocol to the ICCPR, which
requires states to abolish the death penalty.
This commitment to ratify was put into eect
in December 2008.
At the UNGA in 2007, Rwanda voted in favour
of the resolution calling for a moratorium on
executions worldwide with a view to abolis-
hing the death penalty, and voted for subse-
quent death penalty resolutions adopted in
2008, 2010, 2012 and 2014. Rwanda was ab-
sent during the 2016 vote.
SENEGAL
Senegal abolished the death penalty for all
crimes on 10 December 2004 when its Par-
liament voted on an abolition Bill with a large
45
HOW STATES ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
majority. The Bill was, earlier, unanimously
approved by the Government in July 2004.
This move came after debates amongst ci-
vil society organizations and, importantly, a
change in President Abdoulaye Wade’s view
in favour of death penalty abolition.
Since independence in 1960,
Senegal carried out two exe-
cutions, in 1965 and in 1967,
both for the murder of politi-
cal leaders. The country’s Penal Code provided
the death penalty for oences including mur-
der and for its mandatory applicability, among
other charges, those of espionage and treason.
Discussions about constitutional reform in
2001 included the possible abolition of the
death penalty. The move was resisted by then
President Abdoulaye Wade, who opposed abo-
lition and argued that this was a matter to be
addressed by passing legislation that provi-
ded for the abolition of the death penalty. Arti-
cle 7 of the 2001 Constitution stated that “all
human life is sacred and inviolable” and that
everyone has the right to life, liberty, security
“as well as to corporal integrity, and especially
to protection against physical mutilation”. No
exception for the death penalty was mentio-
ned and it remained in the statute books. In its
July 2001 reply to Amnesty International on
moves to abolish the death penalty, the Go-
vernment said: “A process is underway where
all parts of society will be involved in discus-
sing a possible change to the law.”
When the courts handed down death senten-
ces in several cases in 2003 and 2004, a vi-
gorous debate resumed among abolitionists
and their opponents, especially when a bill
was presented in Parliament in 2004 aiming to
abolish the death penalty. Four prisoners were
then under sentence of death.
Senegal is a predominantly Muslim country.
Opponents of abolition included the Coalition
of Islamic Associations, which supports the
retention of the death penalty and who also
argued its supposed deterrent eect. Howe-
ver, Justice Minister Sergine Diop stated that
in countries where the death penalty existed,
the crime figures were not lower than in abo-
litionist countries. Supporters of the abolition
of the death penalty included NGOs like the
African Encounter for Human Rights and the
Senegalese Committee for Human Rights,
who relied on values of the sanctity of life in
traditional Senegalese culture. The latter or-
ganization also emphasized that abolition of
the death penalty was in line with the interna-
tional movement to abolish the death penalty.
Most importantly, President Wade had chan-
ged his mind and became a strong supporter
of the abolitionist bill. The Bill was unanimously
approved by the Government on 15 July 2004
and on 10 December 2004 the Parliament abo-
lished the death penalty for all crimes with a
large majority and with the support of large
sections of Senegalese society.
Senegal is a member of the Economic Commu-
nity of West African States (ECOWAS) whose
members remain divided on the issue of the
death penalty. Debates in Senegal were clo-
sely watched by other ECOWAS members, six
of whom are already considered to be aboli-
tionist in practice, and six others, Benin, Cabo
Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea Bissau, Senegal
and Togo, having abolished the death penalty
for all crimes. Additionally, Guinea has abolis-
hed the death penalty for ordinary crimes and
only one member of the ECOWAS, Nigeria, still
retains the death penalty
3
.
3.
When this report was first published in 2013, only two members of the ECOWAS had abolished the death penalty for
all crimes: Senegal and Togo.
46
HOW STATES ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
At the UNGA in 2007, Senegal was not present
when the Assembly adopted the resolution
calling for a moratorium on executions world-
wide with a view to abolishing the death pe-
nalty. The country had abstained in the votes
on the subsequent death penalty resolutions
adopted in 2008, 2010, 2012, and 2014; and
was absent again during the vote in 2016. Se-
negal is also not a party to Second Optional
Protocol to the ICCPR aiming at the abolition of
the death penalty. When the country was as-
sessed under the UPR in October 2013 several
countries recommended the ratification of the
ICCPR-2OP (A/HRC/25/4). In an Addendum,
Senegal rejected the recommendations and
found it irrelevant because of the country’s
“deep and unequivocal commitment to oppo-
sing the death penalty” (A/HRC/25/4/Add.1).
SOUTH AFRICA
South Africa abolished the death penalty
in law for ordinary crimes in 1995, and for
all crimes in 1997, after the Constitutional
Court found the death penalty to be un-
constitutional in 1995. The last execution
was carried out in 1991.
During the apartheid era,
the death penalty was wi-
dely and disproportionately
used against the black po-
pulation. In 1995, the Constitutional Court, in
a landmark judgement which separated post-
apartheid South Africa from the repressive
apartheid era, found the death penalty to be
unconstitutional because it violated human
dignity and the prohibition of torture or cruel,
inhuman and degrading punishment. The
death penalty was abolished for ordinary cri-
mes in South Africa in 1995.
During the apartheid era, courts consisting
of almost entirely white judges were widely
reported to discriminate against black Afri-
cans and impose heavier sentences on them
than on white defendants. Black defendants
were nearly always poor and could not aord
a lawyer. The death penalty applied to criminal
oences as well as political oences. The latter
were covered by the Terrorist Act, the Internal
Security Act and the “Sabotage Act”. The first
and the last of these laws placed the burden
of proof on the accused. These laws were used
to impose the death penalty to such an extent
that Amnesty International reported in 1979
that South Africa had one of the highest rates
of judicial executions in the world. Between
1978 and 1987, 1,593 people were sentenced
to death, and the annual number of executions
that were carried out exceeded 100.
At the international level, a range of resolu-
tions adopted by the UN Security Council and
the UNGA in 1964, 1982, 1987 and 1989 de-
manded that South Africa cease carrying out
executions of people “sentenced under arbi-
trary repressive laws for acts arising from op-
position to apartheid”.
In South Africa, the increased execution rate,
particularly for those convicted of political
protests against apartheid, stimulated inten-
se discussion about the death penalty among
religious and political groups, trade unions, hu-
man rights groups and members of the legal
profession. Opposition to executions resulted
in the creation of the Society for the Abolition
of Capital Punishment in South Africa in 1971.
It was reestablished in 1988, the year that the
South African Council of Churches declared its
total opposition to the death penalty.
In 1990, as the apartheid regime headed by Pre-
sident de Klerk entered its last days, the Presi-
dent announced a moratorium on executions.
In July 1990, the Criminal Law Amendment Act
47
HOW STATES ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
removed the mandatory death penalty for mur-
der, provided for an automatic right of appeal
and abolished it for housebreaking.
1990 was a momentous year: anti-apartheid
leader Nelson Mandela, who was tried for
oences carrying the death penalty and had
proclaimed it to be a barbaric punishment, was
released from prison and negotiations for cons-
titutional change started. Abolition of the death
penalty became a litmus test for the creation
of a new social order and a tribunal was esta-
blished to review all death sentences imposed
before July 1990. This led to the Minister of Jus-
tice proclaiming in 1992 a formal moratorium on
executions pending the introduction of a Bill of
Rights. The Transitional Constitution of South
Africa was adopted in 1993 and included a Bill
of Rights which did not address the death pe-
nalty. That year two men who had been senten-
ced to death during the moratorium challenged
the death penalty in court arguing its incompa-
tibility with the human rights provisions in the
Bill of Rights, laid down in Chapter III of the new
Constitution. The Minister of Justice intervened
to support the appellants, and the Attorney Ge-
neral brought a case in the newly established
Constitutional Court for the death penalty to be
declared unconstitutional.
This happened in the landmark judgement the
State v T. Makwanyane and M. Mchunu, the
first case heard by the Constitutional Court.
On 6 June 1995 the court found that the death
penalty for ordinary crimes was inconsistent
with the “human rights culture” which respec-
ted the right to life and to dignity as corners-
tones of the new interim Constitution. The
court, which had held hearings on the death
penalty in February 1995, firmly dismissed the
argument of deterrence and held that the way
to reduce violence in South Africa was to crea-
te that human rights culture which respects
human life. One judge argued that the death
penalty was part of South Africa’s colonial le-
gacy and that judicial processes of its indige-
nous societies traditionally did not provide the
death penalty for murder. The court held that
the death penalty would be inconsistent with
the spirit of reconciliation in the new, post-
apartheid era and emphasized the specific
obligations of the Constitutional Court in de-
ciding what was right, not what was popular,
even while public opinion could be ambivalent
about the death penalty. The Court’s Presi-
dent Arthur Chaskalson wrote:
“Public opinion may have some relevance
to the enquiry but, in itself, it is no subs-
titute for the duty vested in the Courts to
interpret the Constitution and to uphold its
provisions without fear or favour. If public
opinion were to be decisive, there would be
no need for constitutional adjudication (...)
The very reason for establishing the new
legal order, and for vesting the power of ju-
dicial review of all legislation in the courts,
was to protect the rights of minorities and
others who cannot protect their rights ade-
quately through the democratic process.”
(State v Makwanyane (1995) (3) SA 391,
para. 88).
In its judgement, the South African Constitu-
tional Court drew extensively on international
and comparative law. The Court distinguished
the right to life provision in the South African
constitution from the provision in the Euro-
pean Convention on Human Rights and the US
constitution, which do not explicitly prohibit
the death penalty. However, the Court, in the
majority opinion, considered judgements in
the US Federal and State Supreme Courts as
well as the Supreme and Constitutional courts
of Hungary and Canada for its conclusion that
the death penalty was a form of cruel, inhu-
man or degrading punishment, prohibited in
the interim Constitution.
.Despite strong pressure from some politi-
48
HOW STATES ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
cal parties in the Parliament to reinstate the
death penalty, the South African Parliament
endorsed the opinion of the Constitutional
Court. In 1997, the Parliament formally abolis-
hed the death penalty for all crimes by pas-
sing the Criminal Law Amendment Act, which
removed all references to the death penalty
from the statute book. It entered into force in
1998 and prisoners under sentence of death
were re-sentenced to terms of imprisonment.
In November 2006, the Constitutional Court
ruled that the Government had fully complied
with its 1995 judgement on the unconstitutio-
nality of the death penalty.
Calls to reinstate the death penalty continued
as a perceived means to combat the high cri-
me rate in South Africa, including by the Afri-
can National Party, but were rejected by South
African leaders Nelson Mandela and former
Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Such calls have not
succeeded since the Constitutional Court suc-
cessfully dismissed the supposed deterrent
eect of the death penalty. On 15 December
2011, the South African President Jacob Zuma
reconfirmed his Government’s commitment to
the abolition of the death penalty.
At the UNGA in 2007, South Africa voted in fa-
vour of the resolution calling for a moratorium
on executions worldwide with a view to abolis-
hing the death penalty, and voted for all sub-
sequent death penalty resolutions adopted in
2008, 2010, 2012, 2014 and 2016. South Afri-
ca became a party to the Second Optional Pro-
tocol to the ICCPR aiming at abolition of the
death penalty in 2002.
To arm its international commitment to abo-
lish the death penalty, South Africa is a foun-
ding Member State of the Support Group of
the ICDP.
SPAIN
The death penalty was abolished in Spain
for the first time in 1932, but partially re-
introduced in 1934 and fully reinstated in
1938. The last executions in Spain were
carried out in late 1975, almost at the end
of General Francisco Franco dictatorship.
With the current Constitution, approved in
1978, the capital punishment was abolis-
hed for ordinary crimes. The death penalty
was finally abolished for all crimes in 1995.
Spain’s first Criminal Code
in 1822 introduced the
garrote, as the execution
method replacing hanging.
After a few years under an absolutist monar-
chy that reinstated hanging as the method of
execution, in 1832, King Fernando VII removed
it definitely and reintroduced the garrote. The
subsequent Criminal Codes of 1848, 1850 and
1870 contributed to establish the garrote as
the only method of carrying out executions,
with the exception of executions by firing
squad in the case of those found guilty under
charges in the military legislation.
The death penalty was uninterruptedly used in
Spain until 1932, when it was abolished as a re-
sult of a reform of the Criminal Code at the time
of the Second Spanish Republic. However, this
abolition was short lined as capital punishment
was reintroduced two years later, in October
1934, for crimes of terrorism and banditry.
From 1936 to 1939, the Spanish Civil War that
ended with the authoritarian rule of General
Francisco Franco which would last until his death
in 1975. In July 1938, Franco fully reinstated the
death penalty in the Criminal Code, through a
Decree-Law, arguing that the abolition of the ca-
pital punishment was against the smooth run-
ning of the State. Men and women, even minors,
49
HOW STATES ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
were executed during the Spanish Civil War and
under General Francisco Franco’s rule.
The last executions were carried out on 27
September 1975, two months before Gene-
ral Francisco Franco’s death. On that day, two
members of the terrorist group ETA -Jon Pa-
redes and Angel Otaegi- and three members
of the FRAP, another terrorist group -José Luis
Sánchez Bravo, Ramón García Sanz and Hum-
berto Baena- were executed by firing squad.
The death sentences provoked an important
popular reaction and rejection and criticism
by European countries. Dierent international
leaders, including the Pope Paul VI, sent re-
quests for clemency for those under senten-
ce of death. There were protests in Western
Europe against the executions and the Am-
bassadors of several European countries left
Madrid in protest.
According to the reports, the international
pressure might have been responsible for the
decision to change the method of execution to
shooting the 5 prisoners rather than by garro-
te. Earlier, on 2 March 1974, Salvador Puig Antic
and Heinz Chez had been executed in Barcelo-
na and Tarragona respectively, and were the
last two persons to be executed by the garrote.
Salvador Puig Antich, a Catalan anarchist, was
judged and sentenced to death by a military
court for the murder of a member of Spain’s
Guardia Civil. Heinz Chez, also sentenced for
murder, was executed on the same day, in an
attempt by the authorities to lead the public
opinion to assume that common violence and
political violence could be equated.
The 1978 Constitution, that consolidated de-
mocracy in Spain after Franco’s authoritarian
regime, abolished the death penalty for ordi-
nary crimes. The capital punishment was still
retained in the military jurisdiction in times of
war. In this sense, the Military Criminal Code
envisaged the death penalty as the highest
punishment for treason, military rebellion, es-
pionage, sabotage and war crimes.
In 1995, with the abolition of the death penal-
ty from the military jurisdiction, Spain became
completely abolitionist.
It has to be noted that article 15 of the Spa-
nish Constitution still mentions the capital pu-
nishment: “Everyone has the right to life and
to physical and moral integrity, and under no
circumstances may be subjected to tortu-
re or to inhuman or degrading punishment or
treatment. Death penalty is hereby abolished,
except as provided for by military criminal law
in times of war”.
In January 1985 Spain acceded to Protocol
no. 6 to the European Convention on Human
Rights, providing for abolition of the death
penalty in peacetime, and in December 2009,
Spain also ratified Protocol no. 13 to the Con-
vention, abolishing the death penalty in all cir-
cumstances.
Additionally, in 1991, Spain ratified the Second
Optional Protocol to the ICCPR, aiming at the
abolition of the death penalty.
Spain’s ratification of these Protocols shows
the country’s commitment to the abolition of
the death penalty and has made the Consti-
tutional provision regarding the capital punis-
hment meaningless.
In 2007, Spain voted in favour of the first
UNGA resolution calling for a moratorium on
executions worldwide with a view to abolis-
hing the death penalty and voted for all sub-
sequent death penalty resolutions adopted in
2008, 2010, 2012, 2014 and 2016.
Spain’s strong commitment to the universal
abolition of the death penalty has been de-
monstrated in numerous occasions, working
50
HOW STATES ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
at a bilateral level to fight for Spanish natio-
nals under sentences of death abroad, and
multilaterally, making it a priority for the cou-
ntry during its term at the Human Rights Cou-
ncil (2018-2020). Joaquin José Martinez beca-
me the first Spaniard and European to leave
death row in the United States in 2001 after a
second trial. He had been sentenced to death
in 1997 in Florida on charges of committing a
double murder. The Spanish Government and
the Spanish Royal House collaborated with his
family, Pope John Paul II, the European Parlia-
ment and other organizations to make his re-
lease possible.
A Spanish initiative in 2010 was the inspiration
behind the establishment of the ICDP. Its Se-
cretariat is based in Madrid. Spain is a Member
of ICDP’s Support Group and currently holds its
Presidency.
SURINAME
On 13 April 2015, Suriname abolished the
death penalty for all crimes. The country
retains the death penalty in its Military Pe-
nal Code. The last executions in Suriname
were carried out in 1982.
On 6 May 2011, when Suri-
name was assessed under
the UPR, it was pointed out
that the Penal Code still pro-
vided the sentence of death for aggravated
murder, premeditated murder and treason,
even though a de facto moratorium had been
in place since 1982. The Report of the Working
Group on the UPR stated that the Penal Code
was being revised and the draft amendment
to the Penal Code would not stipulate the
death penalty (A/HRC/18/12).
The last known executions in Suriname were
carried out in 1982. Wilfred Hawker, a ser-
geant and political opponent of the military
regime was executed by the military on 13
March 1982 after he had been found guilty
of treason. On 8 December 1982, 15 political
opponents were killed in what is known as
the “December Murders”. Nevertheless, the-
se executions are not ocially recognized by
authorities and journalists who date the last
known execution to have been carried out in
1927.
In a statement for the abolition of the death
penalty, then Vice Speaker of the National
Assembly of Suriname, Ruth Wijdenbosch,
stated in a conference organized in Geneva
by ICDP and the Inter Parliamentary Union on
10 October 2013 that “there is consensus
amongst the leading political parties in the
National Assembly and also within the Go-
vernment about this very important amend-
ment.” Following a request by Vice Speaker
Wijdenbosch, ICDP Commissioner and former
President of Switzerland Ruth Dreifuss visi-
ted Suriname along with British Member of
Parliament Greg Mulholland and met senior
Government ocials, and other important
stakeholders on the issue of death penalty
abolition. They encouraged the Government
to adopt a Criminal Code that would have no
provision for the death penalty.
In June 2014, the draft legislation to the Penal
Code, substituting the death penalty for all
crimes with long imprisonment ranging from
20 to 30 years, was introduced by the Govern-
ment of Suriname.
A seminar was organized in Paramaribo from
2-6 February 2015 on the abolition of the
death penalty in Suriname organized by the
EU, the UK, France and the Netherlands where
the keynote speaker was Professor Marc Bos-
suyt. Prof. Bossuyt’s visit was coordinated by
51
HOW STATES ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
ICDP. The Seminar ncuded sessions with re-
presentatives of the National Assembly, civil
society organizations, legal experts, and inclu-
ded a dialogue on the process of adoption of
the draft Penal Code, which included abolition
of the death penalty and encouraging Surina-
me to ratify the Second Optional Protocol and
the Protocol to the American Convention on
Human Rights to abolish the Death Penalty.
On 13 April 2015, the new Penal Code came
into full eect, with which the death penalty
was fully abolished in the country. According
to reports that ICDP received, the penal code
was published in the National Gazette (Staats-
blad van de Republiek Suriname, 2015, N° 44;
Wet wijz. Wetboek van Strafrecht (4)) on 13
April after President Dési Bouterse had signed
it on 30 March. This new Criminal Code does
not include provisions for capital punishment.
Suriname was assessed in the second cycle of
the UPR on 2 May 2016. The country was com-
mended on its decision to abolish the death
penalty (A/HRC/WG.6/25/SUR/2). Suriname
accepted the recommendations during this
UPR session to abolish the death penalty in
the Military Penal Code of Suriname as well to
sign and ratify the Second Optional Protocol
to the ICCPR, aiming at the abolition of the
death penalty (A/HRC/33/4).
At the UNGA in 2007, Suriname voted against
the resolution, which called for a moratorium
on executions worldwide with a view to abo-
lish the death penalty. The country abstained
in the voting process in 2008, 2010 and 2012.
In 2014 and 2016, Suriname voted in favour
of the resolutions calling for a moratorium on
executions worldwide with a view to abolis-
hing the death penalty.
TOGO
The Togolese Republic (Togo) domestica-
lly abolished the death penalty in law for
all crimes in 2009. The last execution was
carried out in 1978. Aiming at abolishing
the death penalty internationally, Togo
became State Party to the Second Optio-
nal Protocol to the ICCPR in the National
Assembly in September 2016.
On 27 February 1992, Togo
signed the African Charter
on the Rights and Welfare
of the Child (OAU Doc. CAB/
LEG/24.9/49 (1990)) which had been adopted
on 11 July 1990 by the Organization of African
Union (OAU), now the African Union (AU), and
entered into force on 29 November 1999. In ar-
ticle 5, the Charter bans the death penalty for
all human beings under the age of 18.
The Togolese Government, via the Council of
Ministers, passed a bill aiming to abolish the
death penalty on 10 December 2008. All death
sentences, the last passed in 2002, were com-
muted to life imprisonment. The last execution
in Togo was carried out in 1978.
Justice Minister Kokou stated that “[t]his cou-
ntry has chosen to establish a healthy justice
system that limits judicial errors (…) and gua-
rantees the inherent rights of the individual.
This (new) system is no longer compatible with
a penal code that maintains the death penalty
and grants the judiciary absolute power with
irrevocable consequences.”
With Togo’s President Faure Gnassingbe sup-
porting the abolition of the death penalty, the
National Assembly domestically abolished the
death penalty for all crimes on 23 June 2009
(Act No. 2009-011) by unanimous vote. José
Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, Prime Minister of
52
HOW STATES ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
Spain (2004-2011) and driving force behind
the international initiative to create the ICDP in
2010, attended this plenary session of the To-
golese National Assembly in Lomé during which
the death penalty was abolished.
Togo submitted its reports when it was ob-
served under the UPR 2011 and accepted the
subsequent recommendations of this review
process in October 2011 and March 2012 to ra-
tify the Second Optional Protocol to the ICCPR
aiming at the abolition of the death penalty.
On 21 January 2015, the Togolese Council of
Ministers adopted a draft law authorizing the
accession to the Second Optional Protocol to
the ICCPR. The National Assembly then unani-
mously ratified the law on 10 July 2015, and
on 14 September 2016, Togo acceded to the
Second Optional Protocol, finalizing the ratifi-
cation process at the UN.
At the UNGA in 2007, Togo abstained from vo-
ting the resolution calling for a moratorium on
executions worldwide with a view to abolishing
the death penalty. It did the same in 2008. Sin-
ce that vote, it changed and has voted in favor
of all subsequent UNGA resolutions calling for
a worldwide moratorium in 2010, 2012, 2014
and 2016. In 2014 and 2016 Togo also co-spon-
sored both resolutions calling for a worldwide
moratorium on the death penalty.
Togo is a founding Member State of ICDP’s
Support Group, showing its international com-
mitment to abolish the death penalty.
TURKEY
Turkey abolished the death penalty for or-
dinary crimes in 2001 and 2002 by consti-
tutional and subsequent legal amendment.
In 2004, Turkey prohibited the death pe-
nalty for all crimes by another amendment
to the Constitution and a subsequent
amendment to the Penal Code. The lifting
of martial law in 1987 facilitated abolition
of the death penalty which took place af-
ter a de facto moratorium and the reduc-
tion in capital oences. The last execution
took place in 1984.
Sixteen articles of the
1926 Turkish Penal Code,
as amended, provided for a
mandatory death penalty
for crimes against the State, the Government
and the Constitution. In addition, eight articles
provided for a mandatory death sentence for
criminal oences such as murder. The death
penalty could also be imposed under the Mi-
litary Penal Code and the Law of Treason. Un-
der Article 87 of the Constitution, prisoners
sentenced to death who had exhausted all
legal remedies could not be executed unless
their sentences were approved by the Grand
National Assembly (Parliament). The Judicial
Commission of Parliament eectively halted
some executions by not reviewing individual
cases. Since the foundation of the modern Re-
public of Turkey in 1923, 588 executions were
carried out for criminal and political oences.
Executions were more frequent following mili-
tary coups in 1960, 1971 and 1980, although a
de facto moratorium on executions was in pla-
ce from 1973 to 1980 when death sentences
were still passed but not confirmed by Parlia-
ment. The moratorium ended shortly after the
military coup of 12 September 1980. Accor-
ding to Amnesty International, 50 executions
were carried out between 1980 and 1984, 27
of which were for politically related crimes un-
der Articles 125 and 146/1 of the Penal Code.
Most death sentences were imposed by mili-
tary courts under martial law, which came into
force in December 1978, in trials that fell short
53
HOW STATES ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
of international standards. The last execution
was carried out in 1984 and caused an interna-
tional outcry but death sentences continued to
be handed down by the courts. Martial law was
lifted completely in July 1987, a move that pa-
ved the way for abolition of the death penalty.
In November 1990, the Grand National Assem-
bly ratified amendments to the Penal Code
which reduced the number of oences punis-
hable by death. The death penalty was, howe-
ver, retained for 13 oences including murder
and political oences such as separatism. In a
further move towards abolition, the Parliament
passed the Anti-Terror Law in April 1991 which
commuted all death sentences for crimes
committed before 8 April 1991. This aected
prisoners who were sentenced to death for
politically related crimes under the Penal Code
and those sentenced to death for rape and
drug smuggling - oences punishable under
the Military Code. The Prime Minister immedia-
tely withdrew the files of 276 prisoners who-
se death sentences were pending ratification
by the Grand National Assembly. Although
Turkey maintained a de facto moratorium on
executions, the death penalty remained on
the statute books. The courts continued to
sentence people to death and appeal courts
upheld their sentences.
Turkey became member of the Council of Eu-
rope on 13 April 1950 and ratified the Euro-
pean Convention on Human Rights in 1954. At
the Strasbourg Summit in 1997, Turkish State
President Süleyman Demirel pledged to abo-
lish the death penalty. In the interim period
while the country took steps to abolish capi-
tal punishment, Turkey continued to uphold
the existing moratorium on executions. A new
draft penal code abolishing the death penal-
ty and introducing a life sentence in its place
was proposed by a parliamentary committee
in 1997 and in early 1999 the Government in-
formed the Council of Europe that passing the
bill was a priority for the Government. By June
1999, 47 death sentences had been upheld by
the Appeals Court.
Pressure to resume executions increased
when PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan was senten-
ced to death on 29 June 1999 for “treason and
separatism”, even though the presiding judge
reportedly expressed his general opposition to
the death penalty after the trial had conclu-
ded. European Governments and intergover-
nmental organizations as well as NGOs called
on Turkey to commute his death sentence and
cautioned against a resumption of executions.
The European Parliament warned Turkey in
June 1999 that executing Öcalan “would be
damaging for the process of integrating Tur-
key into the EU”. In January 2000, his death
sentence was suspended pending a review by
the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR)
and in October 2002, the State Security Court
commuted his death sentence before the ru-
ling of the ECHR.
Following Turkey’s candidature accession to
the EU, which requires abolition of the death
penalty as a precondition for membership, the
EU called for maintaining the de facto morato-
rium on executions in the short term and for
abolition of the death penalty in the medium
term, including ratification of the relevant pro-
tocols to the European Convention on Human
Rights. In response, Turkey began the imple-
mentation of the steps towards abolition of
capital punishment.
A Constitutional Amendment was passed
in October 2001 in Article 38 prohibiting the
death penalty for criminal acts but retaining it
in times of war and for ‘terrorist crimes’. On 3
August 2002, the Parliament adopted a pac-
kage of reforms that included a law abolishing
the death penalty in peacetime and replacing
the death penalty for ‘terrorist crimes’ with life
imprisonment. In November 2002, 180 mem-
54
HOW STATES ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
bers of the PKK and others had their death
sentences commuted to life imprisonment. A
year later, in November 2003, Turkey ratified
Protocol 6 to the European Convention on Hu-
man Rights abolishing the death penalty in
peacetime.
Two years into the term of the current Gover-
nment led by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Er-
dogan, Turkey took the final step, in 2004, of
prohibiting the death penalty for all crimes in
its Constitution and the Penal Code. On 7 May
that year, the Parliament adopted Law No.
5170, removing language from Article 15 of
the Constitution that allowed for the death pe-
nalty in wartime and adding to Article 38 that:
“The death penalty ... shall not be imposed”.
Then, on 14 July 2004, its Parliament adopted
Law No. 5218, the ‘ninth harmonization law’,
which removed the death penalty from all arti-
cles of the Penal Code and replaced it with life
imprisonment.
Further underlining its abolitionist commitment
internationally, Turkey acceded in 2006 to Pro-
tocol 13 to the European Convention on Hu-
man Rights abolishing the death penalty and
acceded to the Second Optional Protocol to
the ICCPR aiming at the abolition of the death
penalty. At the UNGA in 2007, Turkey voted in
favour of the resolution calling for a morato-
rium on executions worldwide with a view to
abolishing the death penalty and voted for all
subsequent death penalty resolutions adop-
ted in 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014 and 2016.
Recently, after a failed coup d’État in Turkey
in July 2016, President Erdogan started calling
for the reinstatement of the capital punish-
ment in the country. On 16 April 2017, Turkey
held a referendum on changes in the Turkish
Constitution that would transform Turkey from
a parliamentary system to an executive pre-
sidency, giving the President unprecedented
powers. President Erdogan won the referen-
dum by a small majority of the votes (51.4%
of the voters voted ‘yes’ to the constitutional
reforms). President Erdogan has reportedly
stated that if the Parliament were to back a
draft law to reinstate the death penalty and
if the law was presented to him, he would sign
it. As of today, there have been no new deve-
lopments on the issue of the reinstatement of
the death penalty in the country.
Turkey is a founding Member of ICDP’s Support
Group.
UNITED STATES OF
AMERICA
Capital punishment was suspended in the
United States of America (USA) between
1972 and 1976 after the Supreme Court’s
decision in a number of cases that the
death penalty had been administered in an
unconstitutional way. Executions resumed
in 1977, when Gary Gilmore waived his
right to appeal and was executed by firing
squad in Utah. In the USA, while the federal
Government retains the death penalty, an
increasing number of states have repea-
led the death penalty. As of March 2018,
19 states have repealed the death penalty
and most of the 31 retentionist states did
not carry out executions as eight states
reportedly carried out executions in 2017.
Executions are regularly
carried out in a small num-
ber of states, mainly in the
South. In 2017, 30% of all
the executions were carried out in Texas. Eight
states carried out executions in 2017, which
represented an increase from 2016 when five
states carried out executions. Numerous stu-
dies have concluded that racial and geogra-
55
HOW STATES ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
phic bias mark the application of the death
penalty in the USA. It was the only democra-
tic, industrialized country to impose the death
penalty on persons less than 18 years of age
despite the Supreme Court´s decision in the
case of Roper v. Simmons (Roper v. Simmons
543 U.S. 551, 2005) where the Court conclu-
ded that this constituted “cruel and unusual
punishment” prohibited by the constitution of
the USA.
In 2017, reports suggest that 41 death sen-
tences were imposed in the USA, and 23
executions were carried out, representing an
increase from 2016 in relation to number of
death sentences and number of executions.
However, despite this, the overall trend in
terms of number of annual executions has de-
creased in the last decade, as has public sup-
port for the death penalty in many states. The
key reasons for this trend include the moun-
ting evidence about a range of wrongful con-
victions resulting in innocent persons being
sentenced to death and even executed, in-
creasing doubts about the deterrent value of
capital punishment, considerations about the
very high costs of executions that could be
better used for law enforcement purposes as
well as growing appeals from victims’ families
opposing capital punishment.
Religious organizations, representatives of mi-
nority groups, civil leaders, lawyers, state bar
associations, municipalities and psychiatric as-
sociations have forcefully campaigned against
the death penalty across the country or drawn
attention to flaws in the system. Civil society
organizations supporting the abolition of the
death penalty including the Washington-based
Death Penalty Information Center have played
an important role in informing the public about
wrongful convictions. The media, including
newspapers, has also played a role in opposing
a return of the death penalty, as has been wit-
nessed in the states of Iowa and West Virginia.
The death penalty has recently been reportedly
abolished in seven states in the USA: Connec-
ticut (2012), Delaware (2016)
4
, Illinois (2011),
Maryland (2013), New Jersey (2007), New Mexi-
co (2009), and New York (2007). The states of
Colorado (2013), Oregon (2011), Pennsylvania
(2015) and Washington (2014) have introdu-
ced a Governor’s moratorium on executions.
The Governor of the State of Colorado, John
Hickenlooper stated that “I once believed that
the death penalty had value as a deterrent. Un-
fortunately, people continue to commit these
crimes in the face of the death penalty. The
death penalty is not making our world a safer
or better place.” Recently, in February 2018, the
Washington state Senate voted to repeal the
death penalty in the state and the bill is now
pending at the House of Representatives.
The abolition processes in the states of Con-
necticut, Maryland and New Mexico are re-
viewed below. State Governors played an
important role in deciding the fate of capital
punishment in their respective States. In the
USA, a Governor of a state may also have
powers to grant clemency to condemned pri-
soners and to sign or veto a bill to abolish the
death penalty once it has been passed by the
legislature.
The USA voted against UNGA resolution in
2007 and subsequent resolutions calling for
a moratorium on executions worldwide with a
view to abolition.
4.
According to reports reaching ICDP, Delaware Supreme Court, in 2016, struck down the state's death sentencing
statute, leaving the state with no valid way to impose death sentences. However, in May 2017, the Delaware House of
Representatives voted a Bill to reinstate the death penalty which is now pending in the Senate.
56
HOW STATES ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
Connecticut
On 25 April 2012, the state of Connecticut
abolished the death penalty, becoming the
seventeenth state in the USA to do so. Go-
vernor Dannel Malloy signed the bill that
replaced the death penalty with life impri-
sonment without parole. Eleven persons
were at the time under sentence of death,
and abolition did not retroactively apply to
them.
Connecticut reinstated the death penalty in
1973. In line with Supreme Court rulings, Con-
necticut did not carry out the death penalty if
the oender was “mentally retarded” (Atkins v
Virginia, 536 U.S. 304, 2002) or under 18 years
of age at the time of the crime (ibid Roper v Sim-
mons,). One person was executed in the state
following reinstatement of the death penalty.
In 2009, a bill to repeal the death penalty had
been passed by both legislative houses in the
state but was vetoed by the then Governor.
In 2011, a similar eort failed in the Senate,
largely because of publicity surrounding a high
profile death penalty trial.
Prominent campaigners against the death pe-
nalty in the state included the Catholic Church,
the Connecticut Network to Abolish the Death
Penalty (CNADP) and individuals formerly in-
volved in law enforcement. Leading newspa-
pers in the state carried editorials in favour
of abolition. In 2004, the cities of New Haven
and Hartford passed resolutions opposing the
death penalty in Connecticut. In January 2003,
the Connecticut Commission on the Death
Penalty, created in 2001 by the Connecticut
General Assembly (the state legislature), pu-
blished a “Study of the Imposition of the Death
Penalty” finding racial and geographic dispari-
ties in the imposition of Connecticut’s death
penalty, which helped influence the debate.
In April 2012, the bill was passed by the Sena-
te and the House of Representatives and Go-
vernor Dannel Malloy signed the bill into law.
He said:
“I spent years as a prosecutor (...) I learned
first-hand that our system of justice is (...)
subject to the fallibility of those who par-
ticipate in it. I saw people who were poorly
served by their counsel. I saw people wron-
gly accused or mistakenly identified. I saw
discrimination. I came to believe that doing
away with the death penalty was the only
way to ensure it would not be unfairly impo-
sed.”
The Governor also highlighted the important
role played by victims’ families who opposed
and lobbied the state’s legislature against the
death penalty. The death penalty was abolis-
hed even though 48% of voters in the state
were reported to favour the death penalty,
with 43% against.
Maryland
The state of Maryland abolished the death
penalty in 2013. The repeal did not apply
to the five detainees on death row. Gover-
nor Martin O’Malley commuted their death
sentences to life imprisonment in January
2015. Maryland is the 18th state to abolish
the death penalty in the United States.
The death penalty was reinstated in Maryland
in 1978, two years after the US Supreme
Court decided that executions could be resu-
med (Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, Prott v.
Florida, 428 U.S. 242, and Jurek v. Texas, 428
U.S. 26). Maryland had previously revised its
statute to prevent arbitrariness in the death
sentencing process. In 1987, Maryland passed
a law excluding juvenile oenders from being
sentenced to death (Laws of Maryland 1987,
Chapter 626) and also introducing life without
57
HOW STATES ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
the possibility of parole (LWOP) as an alterna-
tive in capital cases. Two years later, Maryland
adopted legislation making capital punishment
illegal for mentally challenged culprits. In 1993,
House Bill 498 changed the execution method
in Maryland from lethal gas to lethal injection.
In 1996, Governor Parris Nelson Glendening
created a task force to investigate into “racial
disparity in the administration of the death
penalty in Maryland”. The Report of Task Force
on the Fair Imposition of Capital Punishment
found, that “the high percentage of African-
American prisoners under sentence of death
and […] the low percentage of prisoners un-
der sentence of death whose victims were
African-American remains a cause for con-
cern.” Nevertheless, the task force did not find
evidence that racial discrimination had been
applied directly or by reason of the race of the
victim to any of the defendants eligible to the
death penalty at that time.
Three years later, Governor Glendening ini-
tiated and funded “An Empirical Analysis of
Maryland’s Death Sentencing System With
Respect to the Influence of Race and Legal
Jurisdiction”, a study which was conducted by
the University of Maryland, College Park (Prof.
Ray Paternoster). In 2003, the final report of
the study concluded that racial and jurisdic-
tional bias in death sentencing existed in Ma-
ryland, and that specifically homicides invol-
ving Caucasian victims and African American
perpetrators and murders were most likely to
result in death sentences.
Governor Glendening announced a moratorium
on the use of the death penalty in Maryland in
2002, but limited it to the end of his time in
oce. His successor, Governor Robert Ehrlich
Jr. lifted the moratorium in 2003 and allowed
executions to be resumed.
In 2006, the Maryland Court of Appeals deci-
ded that the lethal injection protocol was in-
valid, and thus announced a de facto morato-
rium on executions in the state.
In 2008, House Bill 1111 provided for the esta-
blishment of the Maryland Commission on Ca-
pital Punishment (SB614/HB1111). The Com-
mission investigated on racial, jurisdictional
and, socio-economic disparities, the financial
cost of capital punishment, as well as other
issues evolving from sentencing of capital
punishment. In its final report, the Commis-
sion recommended the abolition of the death
penalty in Maryland. Important findings were
that 1) racial and jurisdictional disparities exis-
ted in Maryland, that 2) the financial costs of
death sentencing substantially exceeded the
costs of life sentencing and that 3) there was
no evidence that the death penalty reduced
violent crime in Maryland.
The following year, instead of abolishing
the death penalty, Maryland introduced the
tightest death penalty restrictions in the Uni-
ted States. Capital punishment was limited
to cases in which biological or DNA evidence
linked the defendant to the murder or the guilt
was evident through a videotaped, voluntary
interrogation and confession of the defendant
to the murder or through a video recording
that conclusively linked the defendant to the
murder. Sole eyewitness evidence became in-
sucient for pronouncing a death sentence.
In January 2013, Senate Bill 0276 aiming at the
abolition of the death penalty in Maryland, and
its substitution by life without the possibility
of parole was introduced to the Senate. The
bill was passed on 6 March by 27-20 votes and
was sent to the Maryland House of Delegates
one day later which approved it by a vote of 82
for and 56 against. On 2 May 2013, Governor
Martin O’Malley signed into law Chapter 156 of
the Senate Bill 276, the Act concerning “Death
Penalty Repeal-Substitution of life without the
58
HOW STATES ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
possibility of parole”. O'Malley said, “I’ve felt
compelled to do everything I could to change
our law, repeal the death penalty, so that we
could focus on doing the things that actually
work to reduce violent crime.” The repeal of
the death penalty was not retroactive and
did not apply to the five detainees under sen-
tence of death. On 20 January 2015, one day
before his second term in oce ended, Gover-
nor O’Malley commuted the death sentences
of the four men remaining under sentence of
death in Maryland into life imprisonment.
One of the committed opponents of the death
penalty in Maryland was Kirk Noble Bloodswor-
th. Bloodsworth, an innocent man, had served
almost 9 years in prison in Maryland, two of
them facing the death penalty, until he was
exonerated in 1993. His case was the first in
the United States in which DNA testing proved
the innocence of the culprit.
New Mexico
On 18 March 2009, New Mexico became the
USA’s fifteenth abolitionist state when the
state Governor Bill Richardson signed into
law a bill abolishing the death penalty, re-
placing it with life imprisonment without
the possibility of parole. The law did not
apply retroactively to the two prisoners
under sentence of death.
Since the resumption of executions in the USA
in 1977, New Mexico had only carried out one
execution, in 2001. Before that one execution,
the then Governor said “eliminating the death
penalty in the future may prove to be better
public policy, given the reality of the sentence
today”. Four men had been sentenced to death
in New Mexico in 1974 but were exonerated
two years later. On 10 February 2001, a bill to
repeal capital punishment in New Mexico was
narrowly defeated by one vote in the state Se-
nate. A state-wide poll in 2008 showed that
64% of New Mexicans supported replacing
the death penalty with life without parole and
restitution to victims’ families.
There was a committed and persuasive lobby
against the death penalty in the state including
prominent voices within the Catholic Church –
New Mexico is a predominantly Catholic state
– and the families of victims of murder. Some
legislators cited the high cost of executions as
a reason for supporting the bill, others the pos-
sibility of executing the innocent. In conside-
ring abolition of the death penalty, the state’s
legislators also drew upon an authoritative
2008 study published in the New Mexico Law
Review on the application of the death penalty
between July 1979 and December 2007, which
found that the imposition of the death penalty
in New Mexico was influenced by legally irrele-
vant issues such as where or when the crime
was committed and the race or ethnicity of the
victim and the defendant.
New Mexico’s 2009 abolitionist bill was pas-
sed with cross-party support by the state
Senate (with a vote of 24 for and 18 against)
and by the lower House of Representatives by
40 votes to 28. After passage of the abolitio-
nist bill by the legislature in March 2009, then
Governor Bill Richardson sought the views
of citizens and was urged by former US Pre-
sident Jimmy Carter to support the bill. The
possibility of miscarriage of justice was a key
consideration in the decision of the Governor
who had supported the death penalty when
he assumed oce, only to change his mind
and sign the abolitionist bill. He said that his
conscience was challenged by the very real
risk that an innocent person could be execu-
ted and concluded that retaining the death
penalty with the inherent risk that a serious
miscarriage of justice might occur was wrong.
Another factor had been the worldwide trend
59
HOW STATES ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
towards abolition, he said: “From an internatio-
nal human rights perspective, there is no re-
ason the United States should be behind the
rest of the world on this issue”. He admitted
that the decision to sign the bill had been “the
most dicult decision of [his] political life”.
UZBEKISTAN
In 2005, the Republic of Uzbekistan (Uzbe-
kistan) abolished the death penalty with
eect from 1 January 2008 following Pre-
sident Islam Karimov’s Decree. Uzbekistan
acceded to the Second Optional Protocol
to the ICCPR in December 2008. The last
known execution in Uzbekistan was ca-
rried out in 2005.
The independence of Uzbe-
kistan on 31 August 1991
was followed by two periods
of reforms, in which human
rights and freedoms were regarded as impor-
tant objectives: 1) the first phase (1991-2000)
of transitions and state building and 2) the se-
cond phase (2001-2007) of modernization and
dynamic democratic renewal. During the first
phase, Uzbekistan acceded to six major inter-
national human rights treaties of the UN and
established institutions and promoted educa-
tion for human rights at a national level. The
abolition of the death penalty on 1 January
2008 was part of the second phase, which
focused on an improvement of legislation and
democratic structures.
At the time of its independence in 1991, over
30 articles of Uzbekistan’s Criminal Code still
provided for the death penalty. In 1994, the
new Penal Code of the Republic of Uzbekistan
stipulated the death penalty in 13 articles. In
1998, the number of articles allowing for the
death penalty was reduced to 8, in 2001 to 4
articles and in 2003 to 2 (art. 97: premedita-
ted murder in aggravating circumstances; art.
155: terrorism). The death penalty was prohi-
bited for minors, women and people aged 60
years of age and older.
With the adoption of President Islam Abdu-
ganiyevich Karimov’s Decree “On abolition of
death penalty in the Republic of Uzbekistan”
on 1 August 2005, Uzbekistan announced the
abolition of the death penalty for 1 January
2008 and its replacement by life imprison-
ment or long terms of detention. Although
no moratorium had been ocially introduced
during the 28 months period between the De-
cree and the abolition of the death penalty, no
death sentence had been passed since 2005.
An immediate abolition of the death penalty
was rejected with the justification that there
was a need for preliminary reforms, becau-
se, according to the President Decree, “[t]he
abolition of the death penalty requires much
public awareness campaigning […], giving the
people a firm understanding of the need for
further liberalisation of criminal punishment,
including the abolition of the death penalty.”
The Decree further stated that “organizatio-
nal-preparatory measures” needed to be un-
dertaken, such as the construction of comple-
xes and buildings for detainees whose death
sentence had been commuted to life impri-
sonment and the training of personnel for
working in those facilities. In addition to that,
the criminal law, criminal procedure law and
criminal-executive law needed to be improved
by introducing amendments and additions;
this process needed to be supported and faci-
litated by studying the legislation of countries
which had already abolished the death penal-
ty and by utilizing their experiences in legal
processes of substituting the death penalty
to life or long imprisonments. Uzbek President
Islam Karimov stated that “The most impor-
60
HOW STATES ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
tant trend in the process of liberalising the
judicial-legal system and criminal punishment
that is happening in the Republic of Uzbekis-
tan is the gradual reduction of the sphere of
application of the death penalty”.
On 29 June 2007, the law of the abolition of
the death penalty was adopted by the Senate
as amendments to the Constitution. On 1 Ja-
nuary 2008, Uzbekistan abolished the death
penalty for all crimes. Following the abolition,
in April 2008 the Supreme Court of Uzbekis-
tan began the process of revising the death
sentences.
After the abolition of the death penalty and
subsequent judicial and legal reforms, Uzbe-
kistan acceded to the Second Optional Proto-
col to the ICCPR in December 2008.
At the UNGA in 2007, Uzbekistan voted in fa-
vor of the resolution calling for a moratorium
on executions worldwide with a view to abo-
lishing the death penalty. It did the same in
2008, 2010, 2012, 2014 and 2016.
61
HOW STATES ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
This publication has described the experiences of 26 states and 3 USA states that have taken
steps to abolish the death penalty. The following are some of the routes and the lessons lear-
ned from their experiences.
1. The route of international commitment toward abolition of the death penalty
Countries such as Mongolia and Benin have started their abolitionist journeys by adopting
the relatively new route of international commitment: by becoming a party to the Second
Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aiming at the abo-
lition of the death penalty.
Madagascar also signed the Second Optional Protocol to the ICCPR before final abolition but
ratified it after finalizing the abolitionist process domestically.
Countries like Guinea and Congo voted in favour of UNGA resolutions calling for a global mo-
ratorium on the use of the death penalty before becoming abolitionists.
2. Constitutional Court judgements
In South Africa and Guatemala, the Constitutional Court played –and is playing in the case of
Guatemala- a decisive role. In South Africa, the Constitutional Court ruled that the death pe-
nalty violated human rights whereas in Guatemala, thanks to the Constitutional Court rulings,
the country became abolitionist for ordinary crimes.
LESSONS LEARNT FROM
THE EXPERIENCES
OF STATES IN ABOLISHING
THE DEATH PENALTY
62
HOW STATES ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
3. Breaking with a repressive past
Countries have abolished the death penalty as a means to move away from an authoritarian
past or after a conflict that involved genocide and crimes against humanity. Cambodia, Ger-
many, Haiti, Rwanda, South Africa and Spain are examples of this route.
4. Constitutional amendments
Countries such as Cambodia, Haiti, Kyrgyzstan, Republic of the Congo, Turkey and Uzbe-
kistan abolished the death penalty by amending their Constitutions, before removing it from
their laws.
In Mexico, the death penalty was first abolished by law and then reinforced by Constitutional
Amendment.
5. The role of the National Assembly/Parliament
In Australia, its Commonwealth Parliament prohibited the death penalty. In Fiji, Madagascar,
New Zealand and Senegal, their Parliaments voted in favour of abolition of the death penalty.
The National Assembly of Togo domestically abolished the death penalty for all crimes and
unanimously ratified the law to accede to the Second Optional Protocol to the ICCPR. In Uz-
bekistan, the Senate adopted the law of the abolition of the death penalty as amendments
to the Constitution. In Suriname, a member of the National Assembly raised international
awareness of the situation of the death penalty and called for support from the international
community. The follow-up actions helped in reinvigorating the process towards abolition of the
death penalty in Suriname.
6. The importance of the international community
The international community –including the UN, the EU, and their institutions, and civil society
organizations- have played a decisive role in dierent countries, in combination with political
leadership. International pressure had an impact in the abolitionist processes of countries like
Rwanda and Spain. The organization of discussions at National Assemblies and events during
the World Day against the Death Penalty was also key in Madagascar and Suriname.
7. Establishing a moratorium on executions
The establishment of an ocial moratorium on death sentences and executions has been the
first step taken in several countries such as in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, South
Africa and the Philippines.
Other countries –like Fiji, Guatemala, Guinea, Congo, Suriname and Turkey- did not carried
63
HOW STATES ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
out executions for a long period of time and were considered to have established a de facto
moratorium on executions.
The moratoria have usually been accompanied by commutations of death sentences to terms
of imprisonment as witnessed in the experiences in Mongolia, Guatemala and the Philippines.
8. Reducing the scope of the death penalty
The scope of the use of the death penalty has been reduced in dierent ways, and has been
chosen by some countries in their move towards the eventual abolition of capital punishment:
- Argentina, Fiji, Guinea, Portugal and South Africa decided to abolish the death penalty
first for ordinary crimes before becoming fully abolitionist. As of today, Kazakhstan and Gua-
temala have also abolished the death penalty for ordinary crimes.
- In Kazakhstan and Turkey the number of crimes carrying out the death penalty was pro-
gressively reduced.
9. Political leadership
Underlying all these initiatives and experiences is the important role of political leadership.
In some cases it is shaped by personal belief and commitment of the leaders: for instance, in
France, Mongolia and the Philippines, as well as the decisive role of Governors in abolishing
the death penalty in their respective USA states.
In other cases, political leadership ensures the implementation of the abolition by moving
away from an authoritative past, beyond conflict, or in consolidating democratic institutions
like national assemblies and the rule of law. Countries like Mexico have taken steps to protect
its nationals abroad who are under sentence of death.
Leadership is key in the abolition of capital punishment as it increases respect and protection
of the fundamental right to life. It thereby constitutes principled leadership by heads of State,
and often includes important contributions by heads of Government, heads of the Parliament,
heads of the Constitutional Court, Governors and Attorney Generals.
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The International Commission against the Death Penalty (ICDP) was created on 7 October
2010 in Madrid as a result of the Spanish initiative to reinforce the global trend towards the
abolition of the death penalty. ICDP opposes capital punishment in all situations and urges the
immediate establishment of a universal moratorium on executions as a step towards total
abolition of the death penalty.
The Commission is composed of 21 high-profile Commissioners and led by its President, Judge
Navi Pillay. These Commissioners represent all world regions – demonstrating that abolition
of the death penalty is a global concern and not the cause of a particular region. They do not
represent their country and act with independence in their decision-making. Its members are:
• Navanethem (Navi) Pillay (President): Former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
(2008-2014), former judge of the International Criminal Court in the Hague (2003-2008)
and former judge and President of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (1995-
2003).
• Ruth Dreifuss (Vice-President): Former President (1999) and Minister of Home Aairs,
Switzerland.
• Ibrahim Najjar (Vice-President): Former Justice Minister, Lebanon (2008-2011).
• Michèle Duvivier Pierre-Louis (Steering Committee Member): Former Prime Minister,
Haiti (2008-2009).
• Hanne Sophie Greve (Steering Committee Member): Judge and Vice President of the
Gulating High Court for Western Norway and former Judge at the European Court of Human
Rights (1998-2004).
• Louise Arbour: Former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (2004-2008).
• Marc baron Bossuyt: Member of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimina-
tion, Member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration, and former Judge of the Constitutional
Court of Belgium. He is the author of the Second Optional Protocol to the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty, adopted
on 15 December 1989 by the UN General Assembly.
THE INTERNATIONAL
COMMISSION AGAINST
THE DEATH PENALTY
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HOW STATES ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
• Marzuki Darusman: Former UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights of the
DPRK (North Korea) (2010-2016); Former Attorney General, Indonesia (1999-2001).
• Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj: former President of Mongolia (2009-2017).
• Sylvie Kayitesi: Deputy Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court of Rwanda; Chairperson,
Working Group on Death Penalty and Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Killings in Africa
of the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights; former Minister of Public Service
and Labour, Secretary of State at the Ministry of Lands, Human Resettlement and Environ-
mental Protection in Rwanda.
• Ioanna Kuçuradi: UNESCO Chair of Philosophy and Human Rights (1998-present); Profes-
sor of Philosophy and Director of Center of Research and Application of Human Rights,
Maltepe University, Istanbul, Turkey (2006-present).
• Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo: Former President, The Philippines (2001-2010).
• Bill Richardson: Former Governor, New Mexico, USA (2002-2010).
• Ivan Simonovic: former UN Assistant-Secretary-General (2010-2016), Special Adviser of
the Secretary-General on the Responsibility to Protect (2016-2018), and former Minister of
Justice of Croatia (2008-2010).
• Horacio Verbitsky: Argentinian well- known political columnist and writer.
• Federico Mayor Zaragoza (Honorary President): Former Director General, UNESCO (1987-
1999); Minister of Education and Science, Spain (1981-1982); Member of European Parlia-
ment (1987).
• Giuliano Amato (Honorary Member): Former Prime Minister, Italy (1992-1993; 2000-
2001).
• Robert Badinter (Honorary Member): Former Minister of Justice, France (1981-1986).
• Mohammed Bedjaoui (Honorary Member): Former Foreign Minister, Algeria (2005-2007);
Judge, International Court of Justice (1982-2001).
• José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (Honorary Member): Former Prime Minister, Spain (2004-
2011).
• Marta Vilardell Coma (Honorary Member): Former Spanish Ambassador on Humanitarian
Aairs, Social issues and against the Death Penalty (2015).
• Rodolfo Mattarollo (1939-2014): Former Deputy Secretary for Human Rights, Argentina
(2005-2007).
• Asma Jilani Jahangir (1952-2018): Former United Nations Special Rapporteur on Arbi-
trary, Summary and Extrajudicial Executions (2002-2010).
For more information on the ICDP see www.icomdp.org
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HOW STATES ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
• Amnesty International, Annual Global Reports: Death Sentences and Executions 2017,
2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009 and 2008.
Available from: https://www.amnesty.org/en/what-we-do/death-penalty/
• Cornell Law School: Cornell Centre on the Death Penalty Worldwide.
Available from: http://www.deathpenaltyworldwide.org/
• Death Penalty Information Centre.
Available from: https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/
• Ensemble contre la Peine de Mort
Available from: http://www.ecpm.org/
• Hands O Cain, Database.
Available from: http://www.handsocain.info/bancadati/
• Oce of the High Commissioner for Human Rights of the United Nations, “Death Penalty”.
Available from: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/DeathPenalty/Pages/DPIndex.aspx
• Oce of the High Commissioner for Human Rights of the United Nations, “Universal Perio-
dic Review”.
Available from: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/UPR/Pages/UPRMain.aspx
• World Coalition against the Death Penalty.
Available from: http://www.worldcoalition.org/es/
• Roger Hood and Carolyn Hoyle, The Death Penalty: A Worldwide Perspective, 5 ed., OUP
Oxford, 2015
Acknowledgments
ICDP particularly thanks Spain for organizing and part-sponsoring the publication of the se-
cond edition of How States Abolish the Death Penalty, as well as the Members States and
Observers of ICDP Support Group that have helped in drafting the history of the abolition of
the death penalty in their respective countries.
The inspirational support, advice and encouragement of ICDP Commissioners has been key in
order to make this second edition a reality.
SOURCES AND
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
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For more information on the ICDP:
International Commission against the Death Penalty/
Comisión Internacional contra la Pena de Muerte
Calle Serrano Galvache 26
28071 Madrid, Spain
Phone: + 34 91 3799458
www.icomdp.org
©copyright ICDP 2018
