Death Sentences and Executions Report 2024

Context

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

Key Highlights  

• Global Execution Statistics: In 2024, 1,518 people had been executed across 15 countries, marking the highest number since 2015.
  • It is an increase by 32% in recorded executions as 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 world executions.
• Death Penalty as a Tool of Fear: The report condemned the usage of the death penalty as a political tool as opposed to for justice.
  • China topped the global list for executions, followed by Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Yemen.
  • The government of China continued to balance secrecy on data on the death penalty with occasional disclosures around positive types of cases.
• Drug-Related Executions: Over 40% of world executions in 2024 have been for drug-related offences.
• Declining Global Use of the Death Penalty: Despite the rise in executions, the variety of countries carrying out executions remained low at 15 for the second consecutive year.
  • 145 countries have abolished the death penalty in regulation or exercise.

Death Sentence in India

• • In 2024, for the second consecutive year, the Supreme Court of India didn’t verify any death sentence, found out a document from Project 39A of the National Law University Delhi.
  • In India, capital punishment, also called the death penalty, is done by “hanging by the neck till death”.
  • Several countries like Portugal, the Netherlands, France and Australia have moved closer to abolishing executions, countries like the US, Iran, China and India have retained a legal framework to allow the death penalty.
  • Capital punishment, which the Supreme Court has time and again said ought to be used only in the rarest of rare cases, was remaining 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 delivered the ‘rarest of rare’ doctrine, declaring the death penalty ought to be imposed only in exceptional cases.
  • 1983 – Machhi Singh vs. State of Punjab: The Supreme Court clarified the ‘rarest of rare’ doctrine and diagnosed five categories of crimes where the death penalty can be justified:
    • Manner of committing the murder: Extremely brutal and dastardly murders.
    • Motive of the murder: Committed for a cause showing general 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 sufferer is particularly vulnerable, including a child, woman, or elderly individual.

Global Framework on Death Penalties

• Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR): Allows the death penalty in restricted conditions however stresses that not anything in this newsletter have to delay or prevent the abolition of capital punishment by any State Party.
• 1984 – UN Safeguards: The UN Economic and Social Council followed Safeguards ensuring the rights of people going through 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 advised countries to:
  • Respect international requirements defending the rights of these dealing with 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 10th General Assembly decision on a moratorium on the usage of the death penalty.

Source: The DTE

UPSC Mains Practice Question

Q. Instances of President’s delay in commuting death sentences has come under public debate as denial of justice. Should there be a time limit specified for the President to accept/reject such petitions? Analyse. (2014)

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