Capital punishment in Europe

Capital punishment has been completely abolished in all European countries except for Belarus and Russia, the latter of which has a moratorium and has not carried out an execution since September 1996.

[5][6] Protocol 6, opened for signing in 1983, which prohibits capital punishment during peacetime has been ratified by all members of the Council of Europe.

[9][10] Abolition has been common in European history, but has only been a real trend since the end of the Second World War when human rights became a particular priority.

William Joyce was the last person to be put to death for high treason in the UK, on 3 January 1946 at Wandsworth Prison.

According to the 19 November 2009 decision of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation, the death penalty shall not be practiced in Russia at any time before the ratification of the above-mentioned protocol.

The Constitutional Court has also clarified that the decision is not an extension of the moratorium but the abolition of the capital punishment, since it will be no longer possible to practice it legally.

[12] The treaty also has a provision for the EU to join the Council of Europe and accede to the European Convention on Human Rights.

The current General Rapporteur on the abolition of the death penalty for the Parliamentary Assembly is German Member of Parliament Marina Schuster.

Russia has not executed anyone in the Russian Federation since August or September 1996[52] (except one in 1999 in the Chechen Republic, a former limited recognition state).

However, it was only on 4 October 2019 that the capital punishment was completely erased from the Constitution of Republika Srpska, one of Bosnia and Herzegovina's two entities.

In 2006, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe wrote that: While Artsakh abolished the death penalty on 1 August 2003, when it decided to implement the Republic of Armenia's new Criminal Code on its territory, the other territories, Abkhazia, Transnistria and South Ossetia, have not done so, retaining capital punishment in their legislation both in peacetime and in wartime.

As South Ossetia decided in 1992 to make Russian legislation applicable on its territory, it has observed a moratorium on executions since 1996.

In July 1999, de facto President Smirnov ordered a moratorium on executions, and there is said to be only one prisoner on death row in Transnistria.

[59] The Donetsk People's Republic introduced the death penalty in 2014 for cases of treason, espionage, and assassination of political leaders.

[63] In April 2021 a poll found that 54% of Britons said they would support reinstating the death penalty for those convicted of terrorism in the United Kingdom.