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The Death Penalty Project’s Co-Founders and Co-Executive Directors, Saul Lehrfreund MBE and Parvais Jabbar MBE, have been appointed to the House of Lords as life peers. Their appointments recognise more than three decades of leadership and advocacy dedicated to defending the rights of some of the world's most marginalised people, advancing access to justice and challenging the use of the…

Ruth Ellis was the last woman to be executed in Britain. In 1955, she was hanged at Holloway Prison after being convicted of the murder of her partner, David Blakely. Just days before the 71st anniversary of her execution on 13 July 2026, the King has accepted the Government's advice to grant her a posthumous conditional pardon.

New research, commissioned by The Death Penalty Project and conducted by the University of Dhaka, exposes systemic failures in the effectiveness and quality of legal representation in capital cases – meaning unjust, unsafe and potentially irreversible outcomes are inevitable for those facing the death penalty in Bangladesh.

After decades of subjecting individuals with mental illness, developmental and intellectual disabilities to the mandatory death sentence, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council has directed that Trinidad and Tobago must introduce “long overdue” mental health assessments for defendants accused of serious crimes.

For 18 months, British citizen Youssouf Ezangi was detained under a sentence of death in the Democratic Republic of Congo. He had faced serious human rights violations. In March 2026, Mr Ezangi was returned from the DRC to a prison in the United Kingdom.

Our new report examines abolitionist de facto states, and underscores that the absence of executions must not be mistaken for true abolition.

A new report published by The Death Penalty Project and the University of Oxford’s Death Penalty Research Unit reveals that capital punishment systems can inflict further trauma on victims, rather than providing for their complex and varied needs.

In a major blow to Japan’s human rights record, the country has resumed executions after nearly three years, putting Takahiro Shiraishi to death on Friday, June 27, 2025. This marked the end of a 2-year, 11-month hiatus – the longest pause since the Ministry of Justice began publicly disclosing the names and crimes of death row inmates in 2007. With…

In 1993, approximately 60 people on death row in Trinidad and Tobago had their death sentences commuted to natural life imprisonment, or a period of 75 years. These mass commutations were prompted by the landmark ruling in Pratt & Morgan in which the courts limited the time a person can be kept under a sentence of death in the Caribbean.…

On 10 February 2025, the High Court in Antigua ruled that it would be unfair to allow the criminal proceedings against Methoni Vernon to continue after concerns were raised about a 2016 covert police operation to bring Mr Vernon from Dominica to Antigua. In an application to the Court, Mr Vernon’s legal team accused the Antiguan State of conducting an…

The Death Penalty Project, in partnership with the Death Penalty Research Unit at the University of Oxford, today delivered this joint oral statement to the 58th Session of the Human Rights Council: Thank you, Mr President. For three decades, we have initiated or supported legal challenges to limit the scope and application of the death penalty in over 30 countries.…

Yesterday evening, at 10:02pm in Taiwan, Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱) was executed summarily and unlawfully. He and his legal team were given less than four hours’ notice of his execution, which took place while an appeal was still pending – an indefensible disregard for the right to life and the due process of law enshrined in the Taiwanese Constitution. Minister of…