The use of the death penalty for drug-related offences is unlawful under international human rights law and standards. It frequently violates international safeguards and restrictions established to prevent the arbitrary deprivation of life. It disproportionately affects groups that are already marginalized, deepening existing structural socio-economic inequalities, stigmatization and discrimination. Yet more than 30 countries still retain it in their laws and hundreds of drug related executions are carried out every year in the name of the so-called “war on drugs”.
