Since the adoption of the Second Protocol to the ICCPR in 1989, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty, a total of 90 countries have ratified the international treaty with 12 of them joining this international commitment in the decade between 2014 and 2023.3 Coupled with national and international civil society activism, the strong push towards abolition contributed to the abolition of the death penalty for all crimes in 14 countries, and for ordinary crimes in 5 other countries between 2014 and 2023.
Unfortunately, these positive developments were not mirrored by parallel progress towards abolition of the death penalty for drug offences specifically. Of those countries which abolished the death penalty for all or ordinary crimes, none had the death penalty for drug crimes in the books; and of those which reduced the list of crimes to which the death penalty could be imposed, only one did so for all drug offences, namely Pakistan, in 2023.
According to HRI’s Global Overview 2023, 34 countries and territories6 still have the death penalty for drug offences in the law. Known drug-related executions remain high; they accounted for roughly 42% of total executions in 2023. This is despite international advocacy and an increasing engagement by the United Nations (UN), international bodies, as well as civil society to move towards the abolition of the death penalty. For example, in 2019, the UN Human Rights Committee adopted General Comment Number 36, which provides authoritative guidance on the interpretation of Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and clarifies standards on the use of the death penalty according to international law. Among other things, the General Comment also elaborates on the irrevocability of the abolition of the death penalty for those countries that have already abolished it and explicitly mentions that drug offences “can never serve as the basis” for the application of the death penalty.7
