Death Penalty

Why do we oppose the death penalty?

Amnesty International opposes the death penalty because it is a violation of two fundamental human rights, as laid down in Articles 3 and 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

• the right to life
• the right not to be tortured or subject to any cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment.

An execution, like physical forms of torture, involves a deliberate assault on a prisoner. The only difference is that the assault is continued until a person is killed.

The death penalty has no place in a modern criminal justice system.   The death penalty is not an effective deterrent.  Because all judicial systems make mistakes and because of its irrevocable nature, the death penalty kills innocent individuals who are wrongly convicted.  The death penalty brutalises society and breeds contempt for human life.

Our campaigning activities include writing letters on behalf of prisoners facing execution and pressing governments throughout the world to move towards the total abolition of the death penalty.

History of Amnesty's opposition to the death penalty

Opposition to the death penalty in the context of political prisoners has been part of Amnesty's vision right from the start. In time, our opposition to the death penalty has broadened to include anyone sentenced to death.

In 1971 we requested the United Nations and the Council of Europe to make all possible efforts to achieve the abolition of the death penalty throughout the world. Six years later, we convened an International Conference on the Death Penalty in Stockholm. In 1977, just 16 countries had abolished capital punishment for all crimes. Today the figure stands at 80. In 1989 we organised a worldwide campaign against the death penalty.

We continue to work for abolition by regularly monitoring developments, collecting information worldwide and organising an ongoing program of work against the death penalty in cooperation with other human rights organisations and governments.

In 2000, together with the Community of Sant'Egidio and Sister Helen Prejean of the Moratorium 2000 project, we presented more than three million signatures to United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan supporting a moratorium on the death penalty with a view to total abolition worldwide.

Stop child executions

Our current campaign focuses on stopping the execution of juvenile offenders - people who were under 18 when the crime was committed. The execution of children is prohibited by international law, and since May 2005 - when the US Supreme Court ruled the practice was unconstitutional - all the world's states agree on this. But a few countries continue to sentence children to death.

Since 2000, we have documented 26 cases of juvenile executions across five countries, Pakistan, China, Iran, Democratic Republic of Congo, and the USA. In 2005 the US Supreme Court ruled that the execution of child offenders was unconstitutional. Find out more about the US Supreme Court decision. We are running a campaign to end the execution of juvenile offenders across the globe. The campaign focus is on Iran and Pakistan.

Find out more

For more details of Amnesty International's opposition to the death penalty see the AIUK death penalty pages.