The issue in depth

When Amnesty started campaigning against the death penalty back in 1977, only 16 countries had abolished it. Today, 141 countries have abolished the death penalty in law or practice. Unfortunately while the abolitionist movement has made significant progress over that time, the countries that still execute prisoners are doing so at alarming rates.

Executions don’t deter criminals

There’s no scientific evidence to show that that the death penalty deters crime any more than other punishments, like life behind bars.

Crime figures from abolitionist countries show that ending the death penalty is not followed by a spike in crime. In fact, in Canada the homicide rate in 2015  is almost half that in 1976, the year the death penalty was abolished there.

Innocents awaiting execution

The death penalty is irreversible. All legal systems make mistakes, so as long as it exists, innocent people will be executed.

In 2016, Amnesty recorded 60 cases where prisoners under the sentence of death were found not guilty after all. In China, Nie Shubin, who was executed in 1995, had his conviction overturned – 21 years after his execution.

In the USA, 151 people have been released from death rows since 1973 due to evidence of their wrongful convictions. Some of them had spent many years on death row and had come close to being executed.

Powerless and poor

Research has shown that people have been sentenced to death after being tortured into ‘confessing’ to crimes, and after unfair or politically-motivated trials.

The death penalty is often used disproportionately against the poor, powerless and marginalised, or by repressive governments to eliminate or silence dissent.

Children facing the death penalty

International human rights treaties prohibit courts sentencing to death or executing anyone who was under the age of 18 at the time the crime was committed. But a small number of countries continue to execute child offenders.

We know of nine countries since 1990 that have executed prisoners who were under 18 at the time the crime was committed – China, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, the United States of America and Yemen. Several of these countries have since changed their laws to exclude the practice.

Australia’s role in the cause

In the wake of 2015’s executions in Indonesia, Amnesty and a number of human rights organisations released a joint paper, which outlined a number of steps the Australian government should take to effectively campaign against the death penalty worldwide. Thousands of Amnesty supporters signed a petition echoing these calls.

Following our petition, the Australian government asked the Parliament to launch an inquiry into what Australia could do in the worldwide campaign against the death penalty. In May 2016, the Parliamentary Committee released its report, A world without the death penalty – Australian’s Advocacy for the Abolition of the Death Penalty, containing a number of recommendations to the Australian government – many of which Amnesty has been calling for.

Importantly, the report called for changes to the way the Australian Federal Police (AFP) shares information with its international counterparts. The Committee recommends that for drug-related crimes, the AFP should never share information unless they’ve received a commitment that the death penalty will not be pursued.

The report also called on Australia to play a leading role at the United Nations in advocating for worldwide abolition, and for Australia to directly pressure countries which still practice capital punishment.

In March 2017, the Australian government provided its response to the recommendations of the report. The response made some positive steps, but it also contained setbacks. While the Australian government committed to a whole of government strategy of advocating against the death penalty, it rejected the recommendations related to when law enforcement can share information on drug-related crimes. Had they been followed, these recommendations would have closed the door on another Bali 9-type situation ever occurring again.

The road to abolition

The road to abolition

When Amnesty took up the global campaign to abolish the death penalty in 1977, only 16 countries had removed it from their laws. Forty years later, that figure is now 104 countries.That includes countries in Asia and the Pacific, Europe and Central Asia, Africa and the Americas – places such as the Bhutan, Samoa, Albania, Serbia, Turkey, Liberia, Rwanda, Canada, Paraguay and Mexico.

In  2016, two more countries – Benin and Nauru – abolished the death penalty for all crimes.

The trend towards abolition remains strong but we must continue to pressure governments in countries where the death penalty still exists, until universal abolition is realised. Will you join us?