The week before last, the Pakistani Supreme Court admitted Asia bibi’s appeal against her conviction and death sentence for blasphemy under Section 295-C of the Pakistan Penal Code. Even if...
India, the Land of Ironies: A Constitutional Democracy’s Dance with the Death Penalty
India is a country of ironies. Barely a fortnight ago, we had a consultation on the death penalty organised by the Law Commission of India where participants advocated for the...
Glossip v Gross: Taking Up Justice Breyer’s Call to Question the Death Penalty
Last month the United States Supreme Court ruled in Glossip v. Gross 135 S. Ct. 2726 (2015) that the use of midazolam in Oklahoma’s injection protocol was not unconstitutional under...
The Mandatory Death Penalty and Narratives of the Common Law
Some people say the common law is all about narrative. A story gets told, then retold and retold and with each retelling it changes a little. Most of the work...
Glossip v. Gross: SCOTUS Affirmation of Underdeveloped Science for the Lifeline of the Death Penalty
On 29 June 2015, in Glossip v. Gross 576 U. S. ____ (2015), Justice Alito gave the majority opinion (joined by Roberts C.J., and Scalia, Kennedy and Thomas, J.J.), which...
The Death Penalty for Foreign Nationals and Migrant Workers
On 16th and 17th June, 2015, a group of experts met in Geneva to address the issue of foreign nationals, including migrant workers, facing the death penalty abroad. The meeting...
Eight Executed: The Price for Drug Offences in Indonesia
Over the last two days the media and human rights groups around the world have expressed repulsion and anger over Tuesday’s execution of eight people in Indonesia for drug offences....
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...