United Nations‘Alarming’ increase in use of death penalty last year, despite global trend towards abolition
Despite a downward trend in the use of the death penalty globally, 2025 saw an ‘alarming’ increase in the number of executions in a small number of retentionist countries, the UN human rights office (OHCHR) warned on Monday.
The UN advocates for the universal abolition of the death penalty. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, ratified by 175 countries, protects the right to life and stipulates that, for countries that have not abolished capital punishment, it be imposed only for the ‘most serious crimes’ in exceptional cases.
OHCHR said the sharp increase in capital punishment last year was driven by executions for drug-related violations, for crimes people committed as children and for offences not meeting the ‘most serious crimes’.
“The death penalty is not an effective crime-control tool, and it can lead to the execution of innocent people,” said Volker Türk, UN Commissioner for Human Rights.
“In practice, the death penalty is also often applied arbitrarily and discriminatorily, in violation of fundamental principles of equality before the law.”
Geography of death
OHCHR’s monitoring reveals that no one region claimed the monopoly over capital punishment.
In Iran, at least 1,500 individuals were reportedly executed in 2025, with at least 47 per cent relating to drug offences.
In Israel, a series of legislative proposals is seeking to expand the use of the death penalty by introducing mandatory capital punishment provisions that would apply exclusively to Palestinians.
In Saudi Arabia, the reported number of executions exceeded the previous record of 2024, mounting to at least 356 people, where 78 per cent of cases were for drug-related offences. In Afghanistan, public executions continued, in breach of international law.
In the Americas, the United States saw the highest number of executions in 16 years – some 47 inmates who had been on death row.
Further south, at least 24 people were executed in Somalia and 17 in Singapore.
‘Encouraging steps’
However, OHCHR noted that several countries took ‘encouraging steps’ last year to limit capital punishment.
Vietnam reduced the number of offences punishable by death. Pakistan also removed two non-lethal capital offences but still retained 29.
Zimbabwe abolished on 31 December 2024 the death penalty for ordinary crimes, while Kenya initiated a legislative review of capital punishment.
Malaysia’s resentencing process reduced the number of people at risk of execution by more than 1,000 and in Kyrgyzstan, the Constitutional Court reaffirmed the prohibition of the death penalty.
So far, 170 countries have abolished or introduced a moratorium on the death penalty either in law or in practice.
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