Glossip v. Gross: SCOTUS to Consider Oklahoma’s Lethal Injection Protocol
On Friday 23rd January, 2015, the US Supreme Court granted three Oklahoma death row inmates certiorari to challenge the state’s three-drug lethal injection protocol. In Baze v. Rees 553 U.S....
Rights Protection in 2014: A Review of the Indian Supreme Court
2014 was an interesting year for protection of fundamental rights by the Indian Supreme Court. We undertook an unprecedented rights review at the Centre for Law and Policy Research. One...
Capital Punishment in China: Room for Cautious Optimism?
Recent weeks have seen the resumption of executions in Jordan, after an 8-year de facto moratorium, and in Pakistan, following the murderous terrorist attack on a school in Peshawar, along...
A New Opportunity for the UN to Move Forward the Global Abolition of Death Penalty
On the 2014 world day against the death penalty, Ban Ki Moon made a strong statement calling for global abolition. This declaration reflects a growing trend toward abolition, and yet...
Federal Judge Strikes Down California Death Penalty as Unconstitutional
In a stunning – and possibly prescient – decision, United States District Court Judge Cormac J. Carney of the Central District of California struck down the state of California’s death...
Executing the Intellectually Disabled: a Stronger Prohibition
On 21 February 1978, Freddie Hall and his accomplice, kidnapped, raped and murdered a young woman, and in a separate incident, killed a sheriff’s deputy. Hall’s siblings, teachers, and the...
¿“Derecho” a ignorar el Derecho Internacional de los Derechos Humanos?
El 9 de abril, un ciudadano mexicano, Ramiro Hernández-Llanas, fue ejecutado mediante la pena de muerte en Texas. Fue procesado y declarado culpable por distintos delitos, incluyendo el asesinato de...
The “Right” to Ignore International Human Rights?
On April 9th, a Mexican citizen, Ramiro Hernández-Llanas, was executed via the death penalty in Texas. He was prosecuted and found guilty for several crimes, including the murder of his...
The Crimes of Gambia's Criminal Justice System
Last Autumn, the world witnessed a fleeting frenzy when The Gambia’s eccentric President Jammeh resumed executions for prisoners condemned to death. These executions—the country’s first in 27 years—were soon halted...
Death Penalty in India: What the Future Holds
By Vrinda Bhandari – Constitutionally speaking, the death penalty in India is limited to the “rarest of the rare” cases and should be implemented in a time frame which is...
Political Betrayal
By Clive Stafford Smith I am writing this article in the airport waiting room in Guantánamo Bay, after a week visiting prisoners on this forsaken military base, and prior to...