PENALTY

Peaceful protesters against the death penalty. © Credit: EPA/Sedat Suna
CHAPTER 6
TRENDS AND PERSPECTIVES
This chapter deals with empirically measurable trends regarding the death
penalty and the role of political leadership in shaping those trends. Although
there is a clear long-term trend away from the death penalty, data about
increases in passed death sentences in 2014 are deeply concerning. Political
leadership is urgently needed to keep us on the abolitionist track.
Salil Shetty, Secretary General of Amnesty International, offers a cautiously
optimistic analysis of global trends in the death penalty from 2014.
Amnesty International has been monitoring trends in the use of the death
penalty for more than three decades. There is no doubt that the world has
moved away from the death penalty during this time. In 1945 only eight
countries had abolished the death penalty; today, 100 countries have fully
abolished it. However, each year there is both good and bad news. According
to Amnesty International, in 2014, the number of passed death sentences
rose by 28 per cent compared to the previous year.
In 2014, an alarming number of countries used the death penalty to
respond to real or perceived threats to state security and public safety posed
by terrorism, crime (especially drug trafficking) or internal instability. As
in the past, unfair trials, “confessions” extracted through torture or other
ill-treatment, the use of the death penalty against juvenile offenders and
people with mental or intellectual disabilities, and for crimes other than
“intentional killing” continued to be concerning features of the use of the
death penalty.
“Rejecting capital punishment is about choosing
what kind of society we want to live in, and which
values—including human rights and dignity,
democracy and the rule of law—we want to uphold.”
— Federico Mayor
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