A refreshed look.
Same commitment to ending the death penalty.
This year marks 50 years from when The Death Penalty Project’s organisational mission first took shape. In that time, we have been taking action to protect the rights of people facing capital punishment and to advance fairer, more humane justice systems around the world.
Grounded in the belief that the death penalty is a cruel, discriminatory and arbitrary punishment, we create lasting change, providing free legal representation, directly challenging the legality of the death penalty and promoting human rights standards in criminal justice systems.
Today, we are stepping forward with a refreshed brand and website – a renewed expression of who we are: a bold global legal action charity working in more than 20 countries, tackling one of the most urgent human rights challenges of our time. Our updated identity reflects the scale, impact and ambition of our work as we continue striving for a world in which every person’s right to life and dignity is protected.
Who we are
We are death penalty experts. For five decades, we have used the law to protect the rights of people facing capital punishment and to advocate for fairer, rights-respecting justice systems.
Today, we are bringing this mission to life with greater clarity and purpose through:
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A refreshed identity and website that reflects the boldness, ambition and impact of our work.
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More accessible resources, news and opinions about the death penalty for all to use.
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A stronger way of telling the stories that drive our legal and policy action.
Why it matters
The death penalty is a cruel and inhuman punishment. It discriminates against the most marginalised members of society. There is also no perfect justice system: wrongful convictions and miscarriages of justice happen the world over. This means innocent people are sentenced to death and executed wherever capital punishment exists.
Despite this, the death penalty continues to exist in more than 70 countries.
An estimated 28,000 people are on death row around the world. And globally, the annual number of executions are sharply on the rise.
The death penalty remains one of the most important human rights issues of our time. We want to see the punishment consigned to history, once and for all. By stating this boldly and effectively equipping the global fight for human rights, we can ensure abolition stays on the agenda, and the stories of the real, human impacts of this cruel punishment are more widely heard.
Our work – and support from people like you to fuel global momentum against capital punishment – has truly never been more important.
Read more about why we are against the death penaltyWhat has not changed
Our ambitions and approach are unchanged.
We work in more than 20 countries and in any one year provide legal representation and assistance to more than 70 people. At our core, we are fierce litigators, but our team and strategies expand beyond the legal sphere into policy engagement, research and alliance building. We work alongside a global network of partners, who are all vital collaborators in our joint fight for justice and human rights.
We remain as impactful as ever.
As well as successfully removing thousands of people in prison from death rows around the world, our work has been instrumental in ending the use of the death penalty as an automatic punishment in 13 countries, and in the last five years alone, we have contributed to abolition in Sierra Leone, Ghana and, most recently, Zimbabwe.
Read more about what we do
We are driven by the real, human impacts of capital punishment systems.
All images on this page credited to Mosfiqur Rahman Johan.