March 31st, United Arab Emirates notification The world, which sentenced the three people who took the lives of Israeli-Moldova rabbis in November last year, to death, called what the prosecutors called “terrorist intent.” After the sentence, the Emirates Attorney General stressed that the sentence represented how it responded to “an attempt to undermine national security and stability.”
The United Arab Emirates has not shown any hesitation to turn the death penalty sentence into executions. February, that It was executed Shahzadi Khan, a domestic worker convicted of killing his employer’s baby. A few days after Khan was killed, the United Arab Emirates I’ve done two more runs.
The Kahn case was marked by a series of issues familiar to American death penalty observers. she I insisted Her recorded confessions were forced and remained without “appropriate expressions” during the trial. Her lawyer I explained her death As “extra-judicial killing under the guise of legal proceedings.”
However, discussions on the issue of death penalty management are far less purchased in global efforts to end state killings than in this country. There is no perfect approach for every size in the fight to end the death penalty.
The most common strategy in international arenas focuses on the appeal of human rights rather than worrying about carrying out innocence, discrimination, or failed executions. I moved the needle Regarding the death penalty in this country. Typical It’s the position The European Union’s “death penalty violates the rights of lifeless lives and is incompatible with human dignity.” The United Arab Emirates, along with several other parents and penalty countries, continue to ignore such debates.
Still, efforts to end the death penalty globally Gaining traction. Eight decades ago, “Only eight states abolished the death penalty for all crimes,” today According to the Death Penalty Information Center144 countries abolished it, and four countries made progress towards it last year.
Abolitionists encounter traps when they argue that there is only one right way for death penalties to end practices. We do not want any effort to end the killings of nations all over the world What to become another “West Knows Best” campaign. The danger is clear when we see how the global death penalty scene collapses.
From what we know, China executes more people each year than any other country. In 2024, Iran, which carried out the second most common execution, 800 people die. This was followed by Saudi Arabia (303 people)Iraq (94), North Korea (32), and the United States (25).
And like the UAE, other countries continue Issuing a death sentence For a wider attack than merely intentional killing. They use it for “sexual violence, homosexuality, blasphemy, fraud, security-related crimes, drug-related crimes” and more.
International Committee on the Death Penalty Identify 9 different paths The country is about to end the death penalty. Some people do so because the courts ordered them to do so, and so they did what they needed to become part of an organization like the EU. Some have taken a one-off dramatic break from the past. Others gradually ended their death penalty. Despite these differences, the committee concludes that “leadership is the key to abolishing the death penalty, as it increases the respect and protection of fundamental rights to life.”
Whatever argument, the journey to the global rejection of the death penalty cannot be concluded quickly. But it will come. On the other hand, we must endure death sentences like the deaths of the United Arab Emirates, Khan and others like her.
Austin SaratoWilliam Nelson Cromwell is a professor of law and political science at Amherst College.
