In April, the International Commission Against the Death Penalty (ICDP) released a new report titled, How States Abolish the Death Penalty. The report examines the experiences of 13 countries, including Argentina, France, Haiti, the Philippines, South Africa, and 2 states in the U.S. (Connecticut and New Mexico), in their paths to ending capital punishment. The report noted that some states took intermediary steps to abolition, including establishing an official moratorium on executions, reducing the scope of the death penalty, or removing mandatory sentences. The report recommended vigorous public debate on the subject, the publication of information about the use of the death penalty, and the emergence of principled leadership on the issue. The report was released during a recent meeting of the ICDP in Oslo, Norway. Read full text of the report.
The British manufacturer Hikma Pharmaceuticals recently announced new rules to restrict the supply of its products for unintended uses, such as carrying out executions in the United States. Earlier this year, Reprieve, a legal advocacy organization based in London, found that a U.S. subsidiary of Hikma sold 100 grams of phenobarbital to the Arkansas Department of Corrections. Arkansas decided to use the new, untested drug in their lethal injection process when they were unable to secure supplies of the drugs they normally use. A spokesman for Hikma Pharmaceuticals said the order had been made as part of the regular request for drugs for prison hospital services and did not raise any red flags because the drug had never been used in executions before. Arkansas has been contacted by the drug company and told that the subsidiary was closing the account. The state's current supply of phenobarbital is sufficient to carry out eight executions and will expire in October 2015. The state will need to seek alternative sources or different drugs when their current supply becomes unavailable. Other 
A new report from the Death Penalty Project, titled The Death Penalty in Japan, provides an assessment of that country’s obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), a treaty which both Japan and the U.S. have ratified. While retaining the death penalty is not itself a breach of the treaty, the report states Japan is under an obligation to develop domestic laws and practices that progressively restrict the use of the death penalty. According to the report, Japan has failed to meet the treaty's requirements for fair trials, the provision of adequate procedures for appeal and clemency, and for the humane treatment of persons under sentence of death. The report also explores the quality of opinion surveys in Japan that have reported high public support for the death penalty. 
According to a new report from 
A new international manual covering psychiatric and psychological issues arising in capital cases has been prepared by a team of forensic psychiatrists for use by attorneys, judges, and mental health officials. The Handbook of Forensic Psychiatric Practice in Capital Cases sets out model structures for psychiatric assessment and report writing for every stage of a death penalty case, from pre-trial to execution. It also discusses ethical issues, particularly with regard to an inmate's competence to be executed. The handbook is published by 
Controversies surrounding lethal injections continue in many parts of the country. In Georgia, the legislature passed a bill to classify the names of those involved in executions as “state secrets.” The bill requires the identity of any entity that “manufactures, supplies, compounds or prescribes” lethal injection drugs to be kept secret. In Arkansas, a state judge ruled that death row inmates cannot use the state's Freedom of Information Act to obtain information about the source, history, or quality of the drugs the state will use during execution. An attorney for the inmates claimed they should have a right to the information because of problems with drugs obtained in the past. On March 25, a federal appeals court heard arguments in a case involving death row inmates from across the country arguing that the Food and Drug Administration acted inappropriately in 2010 when it allowed some states to import lethal injection drugs from foreign sources. Eric Shumsky, an attorney representing the inmates, said, “This case is … about ensuring that illegal drugs are not used in carrying out otherwise legal executions.” Also recently, the Israel-based drug company Teva announced that it would resume manufacturing the sedative propofol, but would not allow its use in executions. Missouri has proposed using propofol for its executions.
Two new reports on the death penalty are available from the international community. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) of the Organization of American States recently released a report containing excerpts from the most important death-penalty decisions issued by the IACHR in the past fifteen years, including cases from Barbados, Cuba, Guatemala, Guyana, Grenada, Jamaica, Bahamas, Trinidad and Tobago, and the United States. The 
New information on 