Patrick Gallahue and Rick Lines (2013), 'The Death Penalty for Drug Offences: Shared Responsibility and Shared Consequences', The International Library of Essays on Capital Punishment, Volume III, Aldershot: Ashgate, pp. 551-70.

Advocating for the abolition of the death penalty for a particular crime, such as drug offences, can provoke discomfort amongst death penalty abolitionists when an end to capital punishment for all crimes remains their overarching goal. Yet there are several reasons to look closely at drug offences. The first is that its application has bucked the international trend toward abolition of the death penalty. That is to say, while governments around the world abolished capital punishment to an unprecedented degree - primarily during the 1980s and 1990s - the number of States that introduced capital drug laws actually increased. A second reason is that during this increase, international human rights norms developed around capital punishment that explicitly identified the death penalty for drugs as a violation of international law. Lastly, international drug control treaties specifically obligate States to cooperate in drug control efforts and in this environment - where resources, intelligence and personnel are shared across borders - there is a serious risk that donor governments opposed to capital punishment can inadvertently contribute to its application in retentionist States.