Death penalty report 2020

A global look at the state of the death penalty in 2020 - its use, legal issues, regional differences, resumed practices, and continued momentum toward abolition.

Amnesty International’s monitoring of the global use of the death penalty in 2020 showed that the number of known executions significantly decreased compared with the 2019 total, continuing the year-on-year reduction recorded since 2015 and once again reaching the lowest figure in more than 10 years. Significantly, and at the same time as the world was focused on saving lives from the Covid-19 pandemic, this overall decrease was reported while Egypt more than tripled its tally and the US federal government, India, Oman, Qatar and Taiwan resumed state executions. The trend was primarily linked to reductions in executions by Iraq and Saudi Arabia, as well as influenced to some degree by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The number of known executing countries (18) decreased by two compared with 2019 and confirmed that the resort to executions remained confined to a minority of states. Major executing countries – including China, Iran, North Korea and Viet Nam – continued to hide the full extent of their use of the death penalty by restricting access to death penalty information.

Positive developments towards abolition were recorded in Chad and Kazakhstan as well as the US states of Colorado and Ohio, while hiatuses in executions occurred in Bahrain, Belarus, Japan, Pakistan, Singapore and Sudan. Encouraging trends continued in Gambia, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, the Russian Federation and Tajikistan.

Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases without exception, regardless of the nature or the circumstances of the crime; guilt, innocence or other characteristics of the individual; or the method used by the state to carry out the execution.