Lebanon is abolitionist for all crimes since August 2026.
On 11 August 2026, the Lebanese National Assembly adopted the law abolishing the death penalty. The draft law was sponsored by Hon. Georges Okais, MP (Lebanon) and PGA member, among other parliamentarians, and submitted to the Parliamentary Human Rights Committee on 7 October 2025. Following its approval by the Committee on 23 February 2026, the bill was adopted by the Parliamentary Justice Committee and the Joint Committee on 2 and 9 July 2026 respectively, before passing in plenary session on 11 August 2026.
This new law replaces capital punishment with life imprisonment with hard labour. While this penalty exists in current Lebanese legislation, the National Human Rights Committee has noted that it remains incompatible with international human rights standards.
Lebanon was observing a moratorium since 2004, when the last execution was carried out. According to Amnesty International, at least 57 people remained on death row at the end of 2025.
While Lebanon has ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) in 1972, it has yet to ratify the Second Optional Protocol aiming at the abolition of the death penalty (ICCPR-OP2).
PGA activities on the abolition of the death penalty in Lebanon:
26 February – 1 March 2019: Honourable Georges Okais, Member of the Committees on Administration and Justice, Foreign Affairs, and Human Rights, PGA member, and former judge, attended the 7th World Congress against the Death Penalty, organized by Ensemble contre la peine de mort in Brussels (Belgium).
22 June 2017: Following statements made by Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq calling on the death penalty to be effectively carried out in Lebanon, PGA Members and Convenors of the International Law and Human Rights Program Hon. Barbara Lochbihler, MEP (Germany) and Hon. Kula Segaran, MP (Malaysia) sent a letter to Hon. Ghassan Moukheiber, MP (Lebanon) PGA Member, offering their support to the Lebanese MPs willing to block any return of the death penalty in the country.