THE DEATH PENALTY: A WORLD-WIDE PERSPECTIVE
By ROGER HOOD

1 Overview
The Present Status of the Abolitionist Movement

Despite the fact that the movement to abolish the death penalty got under-way in the mid-nineteenth century, by 1965 when Norval Morris reported to the United Nations, only 12 countries (plus a few constituent states) had completely abolished it, and a further 11 countries had abolished it for ordinary crimes in peacetime. Since then the abolitionist position has been embraced by an ever increasing number of countries.

Any review of the situation with regard to the abolition of the death penalty on a world-wide basis over the last thirty years is complicated by the fact that, during this period, the political map of the world has changed considerably. In particular, many newly independent states have emerged, some of them, of course, being fragmentary parts of formerly unified states. During the thirty years since 1965, 58 countries have abolished capital punishment: 46 of them absolutely for all crimes, and 12 of them for 'ordinary crimes'. Several of these countries had been, at the time they abolished the death penalty, abolitionist de facto, meaning that they had not executed anybody for at least ten years.

The pace of change towards abolition has further increased in the six years since the first edition of this survey was published in 1989. Since then, 25 countries have abolished capital punishment, 23 for all crimes, whether in peacetime or in war. In comparison, 35 countries abolished the death penalty (25 absolutely and 10 for ordinary crimes) in the 23 years between the survey undertaken for the United Nations by Norval Morris, and that carried out in 1988 for the first edition of this report. In other words, the annual average rate at which countries have abolished the death penalty has increased from 1.5 to 4 per year, or nearly three times as many. A list of all abolitionist and retentionist countries with the date of abolition and of the last execution, in those which are abolitionist or abolitionist de facto, can be found in Appendix 1.

Amongst the retentionist states, at least 30 have not executed anybody during the last ten years, and often far longer. Thirteen of these countries have reached this abolitionist de facto status only since 1989. However, 10 countries which had been previously considered de facto abolitionist moved in the opposite direction by resuming executions and were still considered to be retentionist in 1995. Three more countries, and two states of the United States of America, which had abolished the death penalty, re-instated it, although none of them have yet carried out any executions.

Although the world-wide movement towards abolition has proceeded at an increasing pace, it has to be recognized that this has not occurred evenly across the globe. Many of the recent abolitionist states are in Africa south of the Sahara, with some in Asia--regions where very few countries were abolitionist six years ago. On the other hand, there has been a marked resistance to appeals for change, indeed official support for capital punishment, in various parts of the world. Furthermore, the creation of 15 independent states, all but one of them retaining the death penalty, within the boundaries of the former Soviet Union, inevitably distorts any comparisons between 1988 and 1995.

By the end of December 1995 there were 58 totally abolitionist countries, 14 abolitionist for ordinary crimes, 30 abolitionist de facto, and 90 still retentionist (see Appendix 1). Bearing in mind that the countries are not necessarily the same in 1988 as they were in 1995.

Even though, by the end of 1995, less than a third of all separate political entities had completely abolished the death penalty de jure, more than half had abolished it either in law or in practice.

Of great significance has been the adoption of protocols to conventions on human, civil, and political rights which endorse the abolition of the death penalty as an international goal. In December 1982 the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe adopted Protocol No. 6 to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), article 1 of which provides for the abolition of the death penalty in peacetime. Article 2, however, does allow a state to make provision in its law for the death penalty in time of war or of imminent threat of war. Seven years later, in December 1989, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Article 1 of the Optional Protocol states: 'No one within the jurisdiction of a State party to the present Optional Protocol shall be executed'. Although article 2, like the Sixth Protocol to the ECHR, allows a reservation to be made 'which provides for the application of the death penalty in time of war pursuant to a conviction for a most serious crime of a military nature committed during wartime', the reservation can only be made at the time of ratification or accession. In June 1990, the General Assembly of the Organisation of American States adopted the Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights to Abolish the Death Penalty (ACHR). Article 1 calls upon states to abstain from the use of the death penalty, but does not impose an obligation on them to erase it from the statute book. Thus de facto abolitionist countries may also ratify the Protocol. None of these instruments, of course, fully endorse the complete abolition of the death penalty.

However, a significant move was made in this direction when, in 1994, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe recommended that a further Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights should be established. This would provide for the complete abolition of the death penalty with no possibility of reservations being entered for its retention in any special circumstances. In addition, the Assembly resolved that 'the willingness to ratify the [Sixth Protocol] be made a prerequisite for membership of the Council of Europe'. The importance of these international developments is discussed further in paras 87-89 below.