Death penalty report 2018

This report covers the judicial use of the death penalty for the period January to December 2018. As in previous years, information is collected from a variety of sources, including: official figures; judgments; information from individuals sentenced to death and their families and representatives; reporting by other civil society organizations; and media reports. Amnesty International reports only on executions, death sentences and other aspects of the use of the death penalty, such as commutations and exonerations, where there is reasonable confirmation. In many countries governments do not publish information on their use of the death penalty. In Belarus, China and Vietnam, data on the use of the death penalty is classified as a state secret.

During 2018 little or no information was available on some countries – in particular Laos, North Korea (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) and Syria – due to restrictive state practice and/or armed conflict. Therefore, with only a few exceptions, Amnesty International’s figures on the use of the death penalty are minimum figures. The true figures are likely to be higher. Where the organization obtains fuller information on a specific country in a given year this is noted in the report.

In our 2018 global review of the death penalty, global executions have fallen by almost one-third last year to the lowest figure in at least a decade. The statistics assess known executions worldwide except in China, where figures thought to be in their thousands remain classified as a state secret.

“The dramatic global fall in executions proves that even the most unlikely countries are starting to change their ways and realise the death penalty is not the answer,”

- Kumi Naidoo, Amnesty International’s Secretary General"

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