However, in totalitarian regimes or even in countries where legal systems are not stable, the death penalty can be used to silence dissent or punish petty crimes such as drug use, desertion or even cowardice. Singapore, for example, hanged a man this week solely for trafficking cannabis. For this variant of deadly crimes, many activists argue that governments should not possess this deadly punitive weapon, which can easily be misused. At the end of his term, Trump ordered the deaths of 13 prisoners. What happens to the 2,500 people on death row? In Nazi Germany, there were three types of death penalty; Hanging, beheading and shooting to death. [40] Modern military organizations have also used the death penalty as a means of maintaining military discipline. In the past, cowardice, absence without vacation, desertion, insubordination, oppression under enemy fire and disobedience to orders were often crimes punishable by death (see decimation and gauntlet). A method of execution since firearms have been commonly used is also the firing squad, although some countries use execution with a single bullet in the head or neck. In recent centuries, with the advent of modern nation-states, justice has increasingly been associated with the concept of natural and legal rights. During this period, the number of permanent police forces and permanent penitentiary institutions increased. Rational choice theory, a utilitarian approach to criminology that justifies punishment as a form of deterrence as opposed to retaliation, dates back to Cesare Beccaria, whose influential treatise On Crimes and Punishments (1764) was the first detailed analysis of the death penalty calling for the abolition of the death penalty. [35] In England, Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), the founder of modern utilitarianism, called for the abolition of the death penalty. [36] Beccaria and later Charles Dickens and Karl Marx noted the impact of increased violent crime at the time and place of executions.

Official recognition of this phenomenon has led to executions in prisons, out of the public. In addition, executions take place in the de facto Wa autonomous state. Wa State (officially Wa Self-Managed Division) is nominally a semi-autonomous division located in two separate regions of Shan State. As such, it is fundamentally subject to Myanmar`s laws, enforcement and judicial system. In reality, however, Wa State is entirely controlled by the United Wa State Army (UWSA) – an ethnic armed organization (EAO) that had previously openly rebelled against Myanmar`s government and military. Although the UWSA has managed to ease its relations with the Central Authority of Myanmar in recent years, in practice Myanmar`s legal system does not apply within Wa State. In fact, death sentences are regularly handed down and carried out, most recently in 2020. [270] Wa State imposes the death penalty only for murder [271] and executions are carried out by bullets in the neck. Note: If a country has abolished, reintroduced and abolished (e.g.

Philippines, Switzerland, Portugal, Italy), only the subsequent abolition date is taken into account. Countries that have been abolished and have since been readmitted (e.g. Liberia) are not included. Non-independent territories are considered to be under the jurisdiction of their country of origin, resulting in unexpected late abolition dates for Great Britain, New Zealand and the Netherlands, where Jersey (United Kingdom), Cook Is (New Zealand) and the Netherlands Antilles were the last territories of these States to abolish the death penalty, and all were slightly subsequent to the more well-known abolitions on the respective continent. The references can be found in the continental tables above and are not repeated here. The death penalty is the subject of active controversy in several countries and states, and positions may vary within the same political ideology or cultural region. In the European Union (EU), Article 2 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union prohibits the use of the death penalty. [9] The Council of Europe, which has 47 member states, has attempted to abolish absolutely the use of the death penalty by its members through Protocol 13 to the European Convention on Human Rights. However, this only concerns the Member States that have signed and ratified it, and not Armenia, Russia and Azerbaijan.

Between 2007 and 2018[10], the UN General Assembly adopted seven non-binding resolutions calling for a global moratorium on executions with a view to possible abolition. [11] In most countries where the death penalty is practiced, it is now reserved for murder, terrorism, war crimes, espionage, treason or military justice. In some countries, sexual crimes such as rape, fornication, adultery, incest, sodomy and bestiality are punished as well as religious crimes such as Hudud, Zina and Qisas crimes such as apostasy (formal renunciation of the state religion), blasphemy, moharebeh, hirabah, pheasad, mofsed-e-filarz and witchcraft. In many countries where the death penalty is applied, drug trafficking and often drug possession is a crime punishable by death. In China, human trafficking and serious cases of corruption and financial crimes are punishable by death. In military forces around the world, courts martial have handed down death sentences for crimes such as cowardice, desertion, disobedience and mutiny. [16] Drafting tribal dispute arbitrations involved peace settlements, often conducted in a religious context and a compensation system. Compensation was based on the principle of substitution, which could include material (e.g. livestock, slaves, land), compensation, exchange of bride and groom or payment of blood debts. Settlement rules could allow animal blood to replace human blood, or transfers of goods or blood money, or in some cases, an offer of performance by a person.

The person proposed for execution did not have to be the original perpetrator of the crime, because the social system was based on tribes and clans, not on individuals. Blood quarrels could be settled in meetings, like Nordic things. [17] Systems resulting from bloodshed may survive alongside more advanced legal systems or be recognized by the courts (e.g. Process by struggle or blood money). One of the most modern refinements of the Blood Feud is the Duel. The last country to abolish the death penalty was Burkina Faso in June 2018. [73] Watch Amnesty International`s animated slideshow «Death Penalty Stories,» narrated by Colin Firth, with stories about the death penalty around the world. Armenia has become a party to an important international treaty on the abolition of the death penalty. Ethiopia, Guyana, Maldives, Oman, Tanzania and Uganda handed down death sentences after failing to do so in 2020, while the reverse was true for Bahrain, Comoros, Laos and Niger.