Welcome to The Death Penalty Project

For more than twenty years The Death Penalty Project has worked to promote and protect the human rights of those facing the death penalty. Our main objectives are:

• to provide free and effective legal representation and assistance to those individuals who are facing the death penalty;
• to promote the restriction of the death penalty in line with international minimum legal requirements;
• to uphold and develop human rights standards and the criminal law; and 
• to promote increased awareness and greater dialogue with key stakeholders on the death penalty.

Although we operate in all jurisdictions where the death penalty remains an enforceable punishment, our actions are concentrated in those countries which retain the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London as their final court of appeal and in other Commonwealth countries, principally in the Anglophone Caribbean and Africa.

Our Achievements

The Death Penalty Project has assisted in saving the lives of men and women in Caribbean and African countries, who would almost certainly otherwise have been executed by hanging or would have languished on death row enduring the mental anguish and suffering inherent in capital punishment.

More than fifty death row prisoners who failed to receive fair trials and were the victims of miscarriages of justice had their convictions quashed.

The mandatory death penalty has now been removed in nine Caribbean countries as well as in Uganda and Malawi. In 2009, Barbados declared its intention to follow this trend. Furthermore, in August 2009, more than 4,000 death sentences were commuted in Kenya, partly as a result of the work of the organisation. In 2010, in a landmark decision, the Court of Appeal of Kenya ruled that the mandatory death penalty for murder to be unconstitutional as it violates the right to life. 

Latest News

• The Death Penalty Project's Five Year Report was launched at the House of Lords on 20th October 2011. For more details and to view the full Report, click here.
• China suspends death sentences for two years. For more details, please click here. For the Death Penalty Project's work in China, please click here. 
• The Appeal of Yong Vui Kong, a 22 year old convicted of drug trafficking, was dismissed by the Court of Appeal of Singapore in May.  Please click here for further details. A short documentary following Vui Kong's case by Al Jazeera can be viewed here.
• Belize replaces the jurisdiction of the Privy Council with that of the Caribbean Court of Justice.  Please click here for further details. 
• The case of Romeo Cannonier and Others was heard at the Privy Council in May and has been remitted back to the Court of Appeal of St Kitts. Please click here for further details.