Roger Hood (pictured), Professor Emeritus of Criminology at the University of Oxford, has published a report on official attitudes towards capital punishment in China. Abolition of the Death Penalty: China in World Perspective outlines the changes over the past decade on this issue within Chinese academic and judicial communities. Hood observed that one of the strongest justifications for the death penalty in China is “the belief that retribution based on the notion of ‘a life for a life’ was deeply embedded in Chinese culture; that ignoring this support might cause social instability; and that China [is] not yet sufficiently economically developed that it could do away with an effective criminal sanction.” Nevertheless, Hood points out that despite secrecy around the country’s death penalty, “no one can doubt that a movement towards restriction and eventual abolition has got under way.” He attributes the shift in attitudes on the death penalty to the emerging international narrative that suggests capital punishment should be treated not as “a weapon of national criminal justice policy,” but as “a fundamental violation of universal human rights: not only the right to life but the right to be free from excessive, repressive and tortuous punishments - including the risk that an innocent or undeserving person may be executed.”
A new study by the organization Together Against the Death Penalty examined the status of capital punishment in the U.S. through a series of interviews and visits to death penalty states in 2010. The report, 999 - The Death Penalty in the United States, was written by Arnaud Gaillard and it exposes some of the serious problems with capital punishment in this country from a human rights perspective. The report calls on decision-makers to take a closer look at the conditions of those awaiting execution and at the risk of arbitrariness in the implementation of the death penalty. Gaillard wrote, “Indeed death rows are not full of innocents. Some of them have committed horrible crimes… When one looks closer, it is likely that the authors of the worst ills in American society are not necessarily the ones found on death row. With luck, sufficient funds and networks, the privileged have the means to escape the death penalty.” The report consists of empirical research, interviews and questionnaires from states like California, Utah, Oklahoma, Texas, Mississippi, Tennessee, Pennsylvania and Virginia.
On December 20, the European Commission announced tough new restrictions on the export of drugs that could be used for executions in the United States. The EC added pentobarbital and sodium thiopental - two drugs on which almost all American executions currently depend - to its list of restricted products that are tightly controlled on the grounds that they may be used for cruel and inhuman treatment or punishment. "The decision today contributes to the wider EU efforts to abolish the death penalty worldwide," said the Commission's vice-president, Catherine Ashton. The United Kingdom's Business Secretary, Vince Cable, welcomed the new regulations, saying, "We have led the way by introducing national controls on the export to the United States of certain drugs, which could be used for the purpose of lethal injection. However we have always stated our clear preference for action at EU level and I am pleased that, following our initiative, these steps are now being taken." Last year, the sole manufacturer of sodium thiopental, Hospira, Inc., announced it would no longer produce the drug. In 2011, Lundbeck, Inc., the Danish manufacturer of pentobarbital, made efforts to block the sale of its product to any penal institution in the United States. All U.S. executions in 2011 were conducted by lethal injection.
The latest edition of the Death Penalty Information Center's series of podcasts, DPIC on the Issues, is now available for listening or downloading. This podcast - the 17th in the series - discusses international views on the death penalty and how those views might affect capital punishment in the United States. The podcast includes discussions about the role of international pharmaceutical companies in lethal injections being carried out in the United States, and the consideration of international opinion by the U.S. Supreme Court in rulings related to the death penalty. Click here to listen to this latest podcast.
For some Supreme Court Justices and international courts, the extensive time that many inmates spend on U.S. death rows has raised concerns about cruel and unusual punishment. In a recent dissent regarding the execution of Manuel Valle in Florida, Justice Stephen Breyer argued that Valle should not be executed because the 33 years he already spent on death row amounted to a violation of the Eighth Amendment. In an earlier dissent in 1999, Justice Breyer noted that the Constitution did not foresee such delays, “Our Constitution was written at a time when delay between sentencing and execution could be measured in days or weeks, not decades.” Justice Breyer’s concerns are in line with leading international legal opinion regarding the debilitating isolation common to death row. Foreign courts have ruled that living for decades while facing execution is a form of psychological torment. Sarah H. Cleveland, a Columbia law professor and former State Department official, said, “Although concerns about the human impact of excessive time spent on death row have received little attention in this country, the ‘death row phenomenon’ — including lengthy time on death row — has been recognized as inhuman punishment and illegal throughout Europe since the 1980s.” In a 1993 opinion, the British Judicial Committee of the Privy Council wrote, “There is an instinctive revulsion against the prospect of hanging a man after he has been held under sentence of death for many years.” Justice Breyer concluded that a death penalty system that cannot be administered without long delays points to “the difficulty of reconciling the imposition of the death penalty as currently administered with procedures necessary to assure that the wrong person is not executed.” While on the Court, Justice John Paul Stevens also expressed concerns about the cruelty of extended time on death row.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, Thursday, September 15, 2011
Thursday, September 15, 2011 (London, UK) – A survey of countries that enforce the death penalty for drug offences reveals that in many nations the majority or even entirety of those facing execution are foreigners.
In a follow-up to its survey on the death penalty for drug offences, Harm Reduction International reveals that in many of the 32 nations or territories that have capital drug laws in force, the vast majority of those executed or facing death are from abroad. [SEE APPENDIX]
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Roger Hood (pictured), Professor Emeritus of Criminology at the University of Oxford, has published a report on official attitudes towards capital punishment in China. Abolition of the Death Penalty: China in World Perspective outlines the changes over the past decade on this issue within Chinese academic and judicial communities. Hood observed that one of the strongest justifications for the death penalty in China is “the belief that retribution based on the notion of ‘a life for a life’ was deeply embedded in Chinese culture; that ignoring this support might cause social instability; and that China [is] not yet sufficiently economically developed that it could do away with an effective criminal sanction.” Nevertheless, Hood points out that despite secrecy around the country’s death penalty, “no one can doubt that a movement towards restriction and eventual abolition has got under way.” He attributes the shift in attitudes on the death penalty to the emerging international narrative that suggests capital punishment should be treated not as “a weapon of national criminal justice policy,” but as “a fundamental violation of universal human rights: not only the right to life but the right to be free from excessive, repressive and tortuous punishments - including the risk that an innocent or undeserving person may be executed.”
A new study by the organization Together Against the Death Penalty examined the status of capital punishment in the U.S. through a series of interviews and visits to death penalty states in 2010. The report, 999 - The Death Penalty in the United States, was written by Arnaud Gaillard and it exposes some of the serious problems with capital punishment in this country from a human rights perspective. The report calls on decision-makers to take a closer look at the conditions of those awaiting execution and at the risk of arbitrariness in the implementation of the death penalty. Gaillard wrote, “Indeed death rows are not full of innocents. Some of them have committed horrible crimes… When one looks closer, it is likely that the authors of the worst ills in American society are not necessarily the ones found on death row. With luck, sufficient funds and networks, the privileged have the means to escape the death penalty.” The report consists of empirical research, interviews and questionnaires from states like California, Utah, Oklahoma, Texas, Mississippi, Tennessee, Pennsylvania and Virginia.
On December 20, the European Commission announced tough new restrictions on the export of drugs that could be used for executions in the United States. The EC added pentobarbital and sodium thiopental - two drugs on which almost all American executions currently depend - to its list of restricted products that are tightly controlled on the grounds that they may be used for cruel and inhuman treatment or punishment. "The decision today contributes to the wider EU efforts to abolish the death penalty worldwide," said the Commission's vice-president, Catherine Ashton. The United Kingdom's Business Secretary, Vince Cable, welcomed the new regulations, saying, "We have led the way by introducing national controls on the export to the United States of certain drugs, which could be used for the purpose of lethal injection. However we have always stated our clear preference for action at EU level and I am pleased that, following our initiative, these steps are now being taken." Last year, the sole manufacturer of sodium thiopental, Hospira, Inc., announced it would no longer produce the drug. In 2011, Lundbeck, Inc., the Danish manufacturer of pentobarbital, made efforts to block the sale of its product to any penal institution in the United States. All U.S. executions in 2011 were conducted by lethal injection.
The latest edition of the Death Penalty Information Center's series of podcasts, DPIC on the Issues, is now available for listening or downloading. This podcast - the 17th in the series - discusses international views on the death penalty and how those views might affect capital punishment in the United States. The podcast includes discussions about the role of international pharmaceutical companies in lethal injections being carried out in the United States, and the consideration of international opinion by the U.S. Supreme Court in rulings related to the death penalty. Click here to listen to this latest 
For some Supreme Court Justices and international courts, the extensive time that many inmates spend on U.S. death rows has raised concerns about cruel and unusual punishment. In a recent dissent regarding the execution of Manuel Valle in Florida, Justice Stephen Breyer argued that Valle should not be executed because the 33 years he already spent on death row amounted to a violation of the Eighth Amendment. In an earlier dissent in 1999, Justice Breyer noted that the Constitution did not foresee such delays, “Our Constitution was written at a time when delay between sentencing and execution could be measured in days or weeks, not decades.” Justice Breyer’s concerns are in line with leading international legal opinion regarding the debilitating isolation common to death row. Foreign courts have ruled that living for decades while facing execution is a form of psychological torment. Sarah H. Cleveland, a Columbia law professor and former State Department official, said, “Although concerns about the human impact of excessive time spent on death row have received little attention in this country, the ‘death row phenomenon’ — including lengthy time on death row — has been recognized as inhuman punishment and illegal throughout Europe since the 1980s.” In a 1993 opinion, the British Judicial Committee of the Privy Council wrote, “There is an instinctive revulsion against the prospect of hanging a man after he has been held under sentence of death for many years.” Justice Breyer concluded that a death penalty system that cannot be administered without long delays points to “the difficulty of reconciling the imposition of the death penalty as currently administered with procedures necessary to assure that the wrong person is not executed.” While on the Court, Justice John Paul Stevens also expressed concerns about the cruelty of extended time on death row. 
