Documento - Datos y cifras sobre la pena de muerte.(1 de enero de 2006)

FACTS AND FIGURES ON THE DEATH PENALTY

(1 January 2006)

The following document is regularly updated on the Amnesty International website, www.amnesty.org

1. Abolitionist and Retentionist Countries

Over half the countries in the world have now abolished the death penalty in law or practice.

Amnesty International's latest information shows that:

1. 86 countries and territories have abolished the death penalty for all crimes

2. 11 countries have abolished the death penalty for all but exceptional crimes such as wartime crimes

3. 25 countries can be considered abolitionist in practice: they retain the death penalty in law but have not carried out any executions for the past 10 years or more

making a total of 122countries which have abolished the death penalty in law or practice.

4. 74 other countries retain and use the death penalty, but the number of countries which actually execute prisoners in any one year is much smaller.

2. Progress Towards Worldwide Abolition

Over 40countries have abolished the death penalty for all crimes since 1990. They include countries in Africa(recent examples include Cote dIvoire and Liberia,), the Americas(Canada, Mexico, Paraguay), Asia and the Pacific(Bhutan, Samoa, Turkmenistan) and Europeand the South Caucasus (Armenia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Cyprus, Serbia and Montenegro, and Turkey).

3. Moves to Reintroduce the Death Penalty

Once abolished, the death penalty is seldom reintroduced. Since 1985, over 50countries have abolished the death penalty in law or, having previously abolished it for ordinary crimes, have gone on to abolish it for all crimes. During the same period only fourabolitionist countries reintroduced the death penalty. One of them, Nepal, has since abolished the death penalty again; one, the Philippines, resumed executions, but later stopped. There have been no executions in the other two (Gambia, Papua New Guinea).

4. Death Sentences and Executions

During 2005, at least 2,148prisoners were executed in 22countries and 5,186people were sentenced to death in 53countries. These figures include only cases known to Amnesty International; the true figures are certainly higher.

In 2005, 94 per centof all known executions took place in China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the USA. Based on public reports available, Amnesty International estimated that at least 1,770 people were executed in China during the year, although the true figures were believed to be much higher. A Chinese legal expert was quoted as stating the figure for executions is approximately 8,000 based on information from local officials and judges, but official national statistics on the application of the death penalty remained classified as a state secret.

Iran executed at least 94 people and Saudi Arabia at least 86, but the totals may have been much higher. Sixtypeople were executed in the USA.

5. Methods of Execution

Executions have been carried out by the following methods since 2000:

Beheading – (in Saudi Arabia, Iraq)

Electrocution – (in USA)

Hanging – (in Egypt, Iran, Japan, Jordan, Pakistan, Singapore and other countries)

Lethal injection – (in China, Guatemala, Philippines, Thailand, USA)

Shooting – (in Belarus, China, Somalia, Taiwan, Uzbekistan, Viet Nam and other countries)

Stoning –(in Afghanistan, Iran)

6. Use of the Death Penalty Against Child Offenders

International human rights treaties prohibit anyone under 18 years old at the time of the crime being sentenced to death. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the American Convention on Human Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child all have provisions to this effect. More than 110 countries whose laws still provide for the death penalty for at least some offences have laws specifically excluding the execution of child offenders or may be presumed to exclude such executions by being parties to one or another of the above treaties. A small number of countries, however, continue to execute child offenders.

Eight countriessince 1990 are known to have executed prisoners who were under 18 years old at the time of the crime – China, Congo (Democratic Republic), Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, USA and Yemen. China, Pakistan and Yemen have raised the minimum age to 18 in law. The USA executed more child offenders than any other country (19 between 1990 and 2003) before the US Supreme Court ruled in March 2005 that the execution of children under the age of 18 was unconstitutional.

7. The Deterrence Argument

Scientific studies have consistently failed to find convincing evidence that the death penalty deters crime more effectively than other punishments. The most recent survey of research findings on the relation between the death penalty and homicide rates, conducted for the United Nations in 1988 and updated in 2002, concluded: "… it is not prudent to accept the hypothesis that capital punishment deters murder to a marginally greater extent than does the threat and application of the supposedly lesser punishment of life imprisonment."

(Reference: Roger Hood, The Death Penalty: A World-wide Perspective, Oxford, Clarendon Press, third edition, 2002, p. 230)

8. Effect of Abolition on Crime Rates

Reviewing the evidence on the relation between changes in the use of the death penalty and crime rates, a study conducted for the United Nations in 1988 and updated in 2002 stated: "The fact that all the evidence continues to point in the same direction is persuasive a priorievidence that countries need not fear sudden and serious changes in the curve of crime if they reduce their reliance upon the death penalty".

Recent crime figures from abolitionist countries fail to show that abolition has harmful effects. In Canada, for example, the homicide rate per 100,000 population fell from a peak of 3.09in 1975, the year before the abolition of the death penalty for murder, to 2.41in 1980, and since then it has declined further. In 2003, 27 years after abolition, the homicide rate was 1.73per 100,000 population, 44per cent lower than in 1975 and the lowest rate in three decades.

(Reference: Roger Hood, The Death Penalty: A World-wide Perspective, Oxford, Clarendon Press, third edition, 2002, p. 214)

9. International Agreements to Abolish the Death Penalty

One of the most important developments in recent years has been the adoption of international treaties whereby states commit themselves to not having the death penalty. Four such treaties now exist:

5. The Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which has now been ratified by 56 states. Eight other states have signed the Protocol, indicating their intention to become parties to it at a later date.

6. The Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights to Abolish the Death Penalty which has been ratified by eight states and signed by one other in the Americas.

7. Protocol No. 6 to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (European Convention on Human Rights), which has been ratified by 45 European states and signed by one other.

8. Protocol No. 13 to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (European Convention on Human Rights), which has been ratified by 33 European states and signed by 10 others.

Protocol No. 6 to the European Convention on Human Rights is an agreement to abolish the death penalty in peacetime. The other two protocols provide for the total abolitionof the death penalty but allow states wishing to do so to retain the death penalty in wartime as an exception. Protocol No. 13 to the European Convention on Human Rights provides for the total abolitionof the death penalty in all circumstances.

10. Execution of the Innocent

As long as the death penalty is maintained, the risk of executing the innocent can never be eliminated.

Since 1973 122US prisoners have been released from death row after evidence emerged of their innocence of the crimes for which they were sentenced to death. There were six such cases in 2004 and two in 2005. Some prisoners had come close to execution after spending many years under sentence of death. Recurring features in their cases include prosecutorial or police misconduct; the use of unreliable witness testimony, physical evidence, or confessions; and inadequate defence representation. Other US prisoners have gone to their deaths despite serious doubts over their guilt.

The then Governor of the US state of Illinois, George Ryan, declared a moratorium on executions in January 2000. His decision followed the exoneration of the 13thdeath row prisoner found to have been wrongfully convicted in the state since the USA reinstated the death penalty in 1977. During the same period, 12other Illinois prisoners had been executed. In January 2003 Governor Ryan pardoned four death row prisoners and commuted all 167 other death sentences in Illinois.

11. The Death Penalty in the USA

9. 60 prisoners were executed in the USA in 2005, bringing to 1,004 the total number executed since the use of the death penalty was resumed in 1977.

10. Around 3,400 prisoners were under sentence of death as of 1 January 2006.

11. 38 of the 50 US states provide for the death penalty in law. The death penalty is also provided under US military and federal law.

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