Description

The past few years, including 2016, have been marked by terrorist attacks across the world, which in turn has led to renewed support for the death penalty and other “tough” actions to fight terrorism.

Since the 1980s, there has been a global trend towards the abolition of the death penalty, which continues to this day. 16 countries had abolished the death penalty in law for all crimes in 1977; today, there are 140 de jure or de facto abolitionist countries. However, this global trend is suffering setbacks, as governments resort to capital punishment in order to fight against terrorist groups, in the name of protecting their countries and citizens.