Report-Death Sentences and Executions 2024

Syllabus: GS2/Polity & Governance

Context

• Amnesty International has released its report, Death Sentences and Executions 2024.

Major Findings

• Global Execution Statistics: In 2024, 1,518 people were executed across 15 countries, marking the highest number since 2015.
  • It is an increase by 32% in recorded executions compared to 2023.
  • Reason for Spike: Weaponization of the death penalty to silence dissent, punish minorities, and crack down on drug-related offences.
• Key Countries Leading the Surge: Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq were responsible for 91% of global executions.
• Death Penalty as a Tool of Fear: The report condemned the use of the death penalty as a political tool rather than for justice.
• China topped the global list for executions, followed by Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Yemen.
  • The authorities of China continued to balance secrecy on information on the death penalty with occasional disclosures around certain types of cases.
• Drug-Related Executions: Over 40% of global executions in 2024 were for drug-related offences.
• Declining Global Use of the Death Penalty: Despite the rise in executions, the number of countries carrying out executions remained low at 15 for the second consecutive year.
  • 145 countries have abolished the death penalty in law or practice.

Death Sentence in India

• In 2024, for the second consecutive year, the Supreme Court of India didn’t confirm any death sentence, revealed a report from Project 39A of the National Law University Delhi.
• Prisoners on Death Row in India

• In India, capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is carried out by “hanging by the neck until death”.
• Several countries like Portugal, the Netherlands, France and Australia have moved towards abolishing executions, countries like the US, Iran, China and India have retained a legal framework to enable the death penalty.
• Capital punishment, which the Supreme Court has repeatedly stated should be used only in the rarest of rare cases, was last carried out in 2020 in the Nirbhaya case.

‘Rarest of rare’ Doctrine in India:  

• 1972 – Jagmohan Singh vs. State of U.P.: The Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the death penalty.
• 1980 – Bachan Singh vs. State of Punjab: The Court introduced the ‘rarest of rare’ doctrine, stating the death penalty should be imposed only in exceptional cases.
• 1983 – Machhi Singh vs. State of Punjab: The Supreme Court clarified the ‘rarest of rare’ doctrine and identified five categories of crimes where the death penalty may be justified:
  • Manner of committing the murder: Extremely brutal and dastardly murders.
  • Motive of the murder: Committed for a motive showing total depravity.
  • Socially abhorrent nature of the crime: When a murder targets a minority community and raises social wrath.
  • Magnitude of the crime.
  • Victim: When the victim is particularly vulnerable, such as a child, woman, or elderly person.

Global Framework on Death Penalities

• Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR): Allows the death penalty in limited circumstances but stresses that nothing in this article should delay or prevent the abolition of capital punishment by any State Party.
• 1984 – UN Safeguards: The UN Economic and Social Council adopted Safeguards guaranteeing the rights of individuals facing the death penalty.
• 1989 – Second Optional Protocol to the ICCPR: The UN General Assembly adopted this protocol, urging member states to abolish the death penalty.
  • States that ratified agreed not to execute anyone within their jurisdiction.
• UN General Assembly Resolutions (2007-2018): It urged countries to:
  • Respect international standards protecting the rights of those facing the death penalty.
  • Progressively restrict its use.
  • Reduce the number of crimes punishable by death.
• For the first time, more than two thirds of all UN member states voted in favour of the tenth General Assembly resolution on a moratorium on the use of the death penalty.

Source: DTE