Amnesty International recorded 657 executions in 20 countries in 2019, representing a decrease of 5% compared to 2018. This is the lowest number of executions that Amnesty International has recorded in at least a decade. However, it is notable that local trends vary and the numbers have increased in many states. In the following order, the world’s leading executioners are China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Egypt. The following article examines different regions in turn, before asking what impact COVID-19 will have on the use of capital punishment.
ASIA-PACIFIC
According to the report, released on 21 April 2020, for the first time in almost a decade the Asia-Pacific region has seen a decrease in the number of executing countries. However, these figures do not include the thousands of executions that are believed to have been secretly carried out in China and North Korea. Death Penalty Worldwide, a research and advocacy group under Cornell Law School, estimates that there were at least 2,400 executions in China in 2014, or one execution per 562,500 persons. However, the country has still reportedly made moves to restrict its use of capital punishment, which is currently available for 46 offences, including non-violent corruption charges and drug offences.
In India, execution remains prevalent. Last month, the 4 men found guilty of the horrific 2012 Delhi bus rape and murder of Jyoti Singh were hanged in a Delhi prison. A day after their hanging, the spokesperson of António Guterres, the Secretary-General of United Nations, requested that the use of capital punishment be halted. He said “our position has been clear… we call on all states to halt the use of capital punishment or at least put a moratorium on this.” Hiatuses were reported in Afghanistan, Taiwan and Thailand last year – all countries which executed people in 2018 – and Malaysia continues to observe its official moratorium, although Bangladesh has resumed executions and Pakistan maintained its digits with a marginal increase. Japan executed 2 people last year, down from 15 in 2018.
THE MIDDLE EAST
The Middle East region reported an increase in the number of executions. This is mainly attributable to sharp spikes in the use of the death penalty in Iraq and Saudi Arabia. In Iraq, authorities have increasingly turned to the death penalty to punish suspected members of the armed group ‘Islamic State'. The number of people executed nearly doubled to 100 in 2019, compared to the previous year. Together with Iran, these countries accounted for 92% of the total number of recorded executions in the region.
In grim recent news, on April 8th 2020 Saudi Arabia carried out its 800th execution since 2015, when Mohammed bin Salman began his reign. Despite his promise to “minimise” the number of executions, the latest figures indicate an increase, with 185 people killed last year. Notably, a mass execution of 37 people took place in April 2019. Among the victims were 6 young men who were children at the time of their alleged offences.
AFRICA
5 African nations carried out known death-penalty executions last year: Botswana, Egypt, Somalia, South Sudan and Sudan. Again, Egypt imposed the most confirmed death sentences in the region. However, at 435, the 2019 number was dramatically lower than 717, the number of people sentenced to death in 2018. While there has been a drop in cases in Somalia, the increase of numbers in South Sudan has been alarming. Joan Nyanyuki, Amnesty International’s East Africa director has said that “it is extremely disturbing that the world’s youngest nation has embraced this outdated, inhuman practice and is executing people, even children, at a time when the rest of the world is abandoning this abhorrent punishment.”
NORTH AMERICA
Abolitionists argue that death penalty is cruel, outdated and typically punishes poor and minority groups, while people who are well-connected get lighter sentences. However, supporters believe that capital punishment deters would-be criminals from wrongdoing. On these lines, President Trump is now calling for expanding the death penalty so that it would apply to drug dealers and those who kill police officers, with an expedited trial and quick execution. In line with this approach it is still the case that “a majority of Americans favour capital punishment, believing that it will deter offenders or save money and presume that it will apply only to the vilest criminals and that mistakes are not a serious risk”.
These are erroneous assumptions. Statisticians and criminologists have studied this issue carefully for decades, and the general conclusion is that executions have no greater deterrent effect than long prison sentences. In fact murder rates are actually lower in places without the death penalty than in those with it. Additionally, capital punishment is far more expensive than life prison terms. This is because pretrial preparations, jury selection and appeals are all more expensive in capital cases, and death row confinement is more costly than incarceration for the general prison population. Additionally, it is unfairly and disproportionately applied to the underprivileged and to minorities, some of whom may be victims themselves. Most legal systems do not take into account the situations of convicts who have grown up with a violent past and do not have access to mental health support to deal with their trauma. Irrespective, it is notable that the number of executions and death sentences recorded in the US as well as the rest of the Americas has decreased compared to 2018.
HOW WILL COVID-19 IMPACT ITS USE?
The current Covid-19 crisis, however, may be a beacon of hope for death row convicts as the focus is rightly shifting towards deaths due to the virus. A group of prominent medical practitioners and experts has issued an appeal to capital punishment states in the US to release their stocks of essential sedatives and paralytics that they hoard for executions, writing “your stockpile could save the lives of hundreds of people … Those who might be saved could include a colleague, a loved one, or even you.” It remains to be seen how this will impact the 2020 death penalty figures, as countries shift their focus from convicts to crisis, and consider granting early release of inmates to curb the spread of the virus.
Tanushree is a Masters candidate at Leiden University specialising in Public International Law. She is also a Research Assistant at the Public International Law & Policy Group, a pro-bono firm. With a keen interest in history, poetry and conflict studies, she is working to build a career in international human rights law and advocacy.