📋 Tender Overview
09/10/2026
Legal Affairs and Human Rights
On the World Day against the Death Penalty, PACE General Rapporteur again urges universal abolition
Last week, the failed execution by lethal injection of Christa Pike in the US shocked and moved people around the world. The profound inhumanity of this act, which has left her in pain and with profound psychological trauma, is plain for all to see. I urge the State of Tennessee to commute her sentence.
The horrifying experience of Christa Pike is a reminder that it is time to move towards full abolition of the death penalty. It is also a vivid example of a story for life, the theme of the 24th World Day Against the Death Penalty. The stories of people affected by the death penalty and their families are vital to counter the dehumanising portrayals that invariably accompany death penalty cases. They remind us that capital punishment disproportionately affects the most vulnerable, perpetuates discrimination and inflicts immense suffering on families.
These stories also encourage us to work harder to achieve universal abolition. At the 2026 World Congress against the Death Penalty in Paris earlier this summer, I recalled the Assemblys unequivocal opposition to capital punishment, and underlined that any reintroduction would be incompatible with Council of Europe membership.
I welcome Lebanons abolition of the death penalty, becoming the 115th abolitionist state in the world, as well as the positive signal made by Morocco - whose parliament holds partner for democracy status with PACE - by offering to host the next World Congress in 2029. I hope these developments will inspire further progress towards abolition in these regions.
But there have also been troubling developments, including in Council of Europe observer states and states whose parliaments hold observer or partner for democracy status with PACE. I deeply regret that executions in the United States in 2025 reached their highest level since 2009, and that firing squad executions have resumed after many years.
I am profoundly disturbed to learn that the forthcoming execution by firing squad of Nidal Hasan, sentenced to death in 2013 for the Fort Hood murders, may be livestreamed. Broadcasting an execution would turn the cruelty of capital punishment into a public spectacle. I also regret the resumption of executions in Japan in 2025 and 2026.
I am particularly troubled that Jordan ended a nine-year hiatus by hanging six men in June 2026. I also reiterate the Assemblys condemnation of the adoption by the Israeli Knesset of two alarming laws that expand the scope of the death penalty, with clear discriminatory effects on Palestinians. These laws are flatly incompatible with Council of Europe values, and I hope that the Israeli Supreme Court will invalidate the first law. In the meantime, I urge the Israeli authorities to refrain from implementing either law.
I strongly condemn these alarming developments, as well as the global rise in executions - not least in Iran, where the death penalty has also been used as part of a broader pattern of repression. The death penalty is fundamentally incompatible with human dignity, the right to life and the prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. It generates serious psychological and physical trauma and stigmatises survivors. It is time to end it.
For my part, with the Assembly, I will continue to fight against the death penalty in all circumstances and in all places, and to raise awareness of its devastating effects on individuals, families and societies.
