Mister President,

We speak on behalf of five organisations. This panel comes at a time of crisis: after a few years of decline, executions have been steadily increasing since 2021.  Over a thousand people were executed in 2023, and hundreds more executions remain unknown to due to lack of transparency and censorship from many retentionist governments.

Punitive drug policies are driving this trend. Harm Reduction International reported a 1400% increase in drug executions between 2021 and 2023, and almost half of known executions globally were carried out for drug offences. In 2024 the situation has deteriorated further.

Drug control laws in many countries restrict judicial discretion, by prescribing the mandatory death penalty for certain drug crimes; or otherwise contravene the right to a fair trial, including through presumptions which essentially shift the burden of proof onto the defendant. This leads to arbitrary death sentences, imposed without due consideration to the circumstances of the crime or the defendant, often disregarding evidence of vulnerability and marginalisation; eventually contributing to the high number of death sentences and executions.

At the same time, enlightened judgments have in several countries played a key role towards abolishing the death penalty as a tool of drug control or limiting its application.

The evidence is clear – we cannot achieve death penalty abolition without drug policy reform. At domestic level, abolition of the mandatory nature of the death penalty, coupled with evidence-based judicial training and sentencing guidelines, would allow judges to take into consideration all the circumstances of a case and its mitigating factors.

But such efforts must be complemented by a coordinated international response. We urge the United Nations in its entirety and its Member States to:

• Continue to condemn the use of the death penalty as a form of drug control;
• Take concerted action to halt impending executions and promote moratoria on the use of capital punishment for drug offences, as a first step towards total abolition;
• Promote and safeguard civil society, who plays a fundamental role in gathering and disseminating information, and in guiding reform.

Thank you.

Co-signatories:

• Harm Reduction International
• HAYAT
• International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC)
• International Federation of ACAts (FIACAT)
• Responsible Business Initiative for Justice