ABSTRACT
In the past few decades significant progress has been made towards the global abolition of the death penalty. Since 1990 45 countries have abolished the death penalty, bringing the current total of abolitionist countries to 128 (Amnesty International 2007).3 Of the countries that have yet to abolish the death penalty in law, the introduction of moratoria has resulted in a reduction in the number of prisoners sentenced to death, as well as those being executed. And of those countries that still retain and use the death penalty, signs are emerging of an
increasing willingness to review its application. In China, for example, legislative amendments introduced in January 2007 now require all death sentences to be reviewed by the Supreme Peoples’ Court. State figures indicate that this has resulted in a significant reduction in the number of executions conducted in 2007 compared with figures from previous years (Associated Press 2007; Human Rights in China 2007, 26-39). In Rwanda, the government has recently voted to abolish the death penalty as part of moves to facilitate the extradition of those suspected of involvement in the Rwandan genocide (Death Penalty Information Center, 2007).
