On the occasion of the 2026 International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking (World Drug Day) and the Support Don’t Punish Global Day of Action on 26 June, 63 national, regional and international organisations call on the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) and its Member States to unequivocally condemn the use of the death penalty for drug-related offences and to uphold international human rights obligations, including by adopting concrete measures to restrict the use of the death penalty with a view to its full abolition. We further urge UNODC to ensure that none of its technical assistance, capacity-building, or support to drug law enforcement in retentionist States risk contributing, directly or indirectly, to the investigation, prosecution, conviction or sentencing of individuals to death for drug-related offences. 

At a time when executions for drug-related offences are reaching unprecedented levels, continued silence and inaction from UNODC and CND, the UN bodies mandated to guide the development and implementation of international drug policy, are untenable. We urge UNODC and CND to take a clear stance against this inhuman practice that contributes to the perpetuation of human rights violations in the name of drug control and to a systemic lack of transparency and accountability.  

Our organisations oppose the death penalty unconditionally and continue to call on all states that retain the death penalty to fully abolish it as a matter of urgency. 

The death penalty is retained for drug-related offences in at least 35 countries, and it is mostly imposed in relation to the cultivation, manufacturing, trafficking or importing/exporting of controlled substances.

Official information on the use of the death penalty is not publicly available for many countries; and only a limited number of state authorities globally respond to requests for information – often not providing disaggregated data by crime. In the absence of full transparency on the part of states, it is impossible to know the full extent of the resort to this cruel punishment, including for drug-related offences.

However, independent research by civil society shows a sharp rise in drug-related executions in recent years, with such cases accounting for over 40% of all executions worldwide and reaching 46% in 2025. Reported separately by Amnesty International and Harm Reduction International, more than 1,200 people executed in 2025 are for drug-related offences, marking a significant increase compared to 2024 and the highest number recorded to date. This finding underscores the growing role of drug control as a driver of capital punishment globally and in many countries.

Amnesty International and Harm Reduction International recorded drug-related executions in five countries: China, where official sources confirmed drug-related executions, but for which neither organisation was able to present a total figure due to state censorship and lack of transparency; Iran, where almost half the executions recorded during the year were for drug-related offences; Kuwait, which also expanded applicability of the death penalty for drug offences in 2025; Saudi Arabia, where 240 executions for drug-related offences were recorded, doubling the corresponding total for 2024; and Singapore, where 15 out of 17 executions were drug related, also doubling the 2024 figure. Both organisations believe that it is likely that drug-related executions were carried out in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) and Viet Nam, but could not confirm it, again due to restrictive state practices.

Civil society independent monitoring has also documented hundreds of new death sentences imposed for drug-related offences in at least 16 countries in 2025:  Bangladesh, China, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Laos, Libya, Malaysia, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Viet Nam, and Yemen. In addition to these, Harm Reduction International recorded death sentences for drug-related offences in North Korea and Thailand.

At least 2,450 people are estimated to be on death row for drug offences in 22 countries at the end of 2025; though actual figures are likely to be significantly higher.

Throughout the year, the authorities of Algeria, Kuwait, and the Maldives also drove legislative efforts to expand the scope of the death penalty for drug-related crimes. Positive steps to reduce the scope of the death penalty for these offences were taken in Viet Nam, where the death penalty was abolished for eight offences including drug transportation. In April 2026, the Ministry of Public Security proposed further amendments to the Penal Code to reduce the scope of the death penalty.

Recent developments in other countries suggest that, with sustained political will, a significant decrease in the global resort to the death penalty for drug-related offences is possible. In Malaysia, the repeal of the mandatory death penalty in July 2023, prompted a review of existing death sentences by the Federal Court and Court of Appeal, resulting in the commutation of more than 1,000 death sentences. Official figures show a further decline in the number of death sentences imposed by High Courts during 2025, with the overall total (15) decreasing by one third compared to 2024, when 24 new death sentences were imposed. The number of drug-related offences declined by two, from nine to seven. Once, again, Malaysia’s higher courts did not uphold any new death sentences for such offences during 2025. In July 2023, Pakistan repealed the death penalty for drug-related offences; the first country to do so in over a decade.

These changes not only represent significant steps towards aligning national laws with restrictions on the use of the death penalty set out under international law and standards but also reflect a shift away from highly punitive approaches to drugs, of which the death penalty has been the most extreme example.

International human rights law and standards restrict the use of the death penalty to the “most serious crimes”, which do not include drug-related offences. Article 6(2) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and Safeguard No.1 of the UN Safeguards guaranteeing protection of the rights of those facing the death penalty, adopted through UN Economic and Social Council resolution 1984/50, provide that the imposition of the death penalty must be restricted to the “most serious crimes”. The UN Human Rights Committee has stated that “The term ‘The most serious crimes’ must be read restrictively and appertain only to crimes of extreme gravity, involving intentional killing. Crimes not resulting directly and intentionally in death, such as […] drug and sexual offences, although serious in nature, can never serve as the basis, within the framework of article 6, for the imposition of the death penalty. […].” Among other UN mandates, the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions has similarly stated that “The death penalty may not be imposed for drug-related offences. In its 2023 report to the UN Human Rights Council, the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights highlighted that “[d]rug-related offences can never serve as the basis for the imposition of the death penalty”.

The UN Drug Conventions – the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs (1961), the Convention on Psychotropic Substances (1971) and the Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (1988) – do not make any reference to capital punishment, while several UN human rights and drug control bodies have reiterated the total opposition to the death penalty, including for drug-related offences. The UN task team on the implementation of the Common Position on Drugs has reiterated in unequivocal terms that the application of the death penalty for drug-related offences does not respect the spirit of the international drug control conventions and has the potential to become an obstacle to effective cross-border and international cooperation against drug trafficking. The International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) has also noted that “States’ actions that violate human rights in the name of drug control policy are inconsistent with the international drug control conventions”; and has called on States that still retain this punishment for drug-related offences to consider abolishing it for such offences and commuting death sentences that have already been imposed.  More broadly, the INCB has stressed that respect for human rights is a prerequisite for the implementation of the international drug control conventions, and that measures adopted with the purported aim of furthering drug policy that are inconsistent with universally recognized human rights norms are a violation of the international drug control conventions.

However, the use of the death penalty for drug-related offences remains a contentious issue at the Commission on Narcotic Drugs, preventing this body from taking a formal position on this important matter. While UNODC representatives have on occasions recalled the UN’s unconditional opposition to the death penalty, advocacy and advances towards abolition have not been included in programmatic documents of the Office. The continued and unequivocal public condemnation by UNODC of the use of the death penalty for drug-related offences would be critical, in the long term, to change the perception of this issue and foster a context for discussions that puts the protection of human rights at the core of international and national drug control policies.

The International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, or World Drug Day, is an initiative designed to encourage international cooperation to address the risks and harms of drugs. Yet, in many countries, it has instead become an occasion to showcase and legitimise punitive drug control measures, with governments using the day to amplify “iron-fist on drug crime” stances. The authorities of Iran, for example, reaffirmed on World Drug Day their strong resolve to act as “the flag bearer of the global fight against narco-traffickers and death dealers”.In China, courts, including the Supreme People’s Court, use this day as a regular hook to issue judicial guidelines on how to apply the death penalty for drug related offences.

These narratives risk being reinforced by UNODC’s long-standing role in funding and providing technical support to narcotic-control programmes in countries that retain the death penalty for drug-related offences without sufficient safeguards to ensure that these operations do not risk contributing to the imposition of death sentences.

The World Drug Day – and the global mobilisation taking place as part of the Support. Don’t Punish campaign – offer a timely opportunity for UNODC to confront these harms and set the abolition of the death penalty as a key priority in its work. The launch of the annual World Drug Report on 26 June, provides a public platform for the Office to condemn the use of the death penalty as a tool of drug control, and to recommend specific measures that retentionist countries can adopt to bring domestic drug policies in line with international law and standards; and to signal UNODC’s commitment to prioritise abolition of the death penalty in all of its work.

The co-signatories reiterate their call on all international drug control mechanisms, including the CND and UNODC, to consistently incorporate human rights standards into their work, including in connection with the World Drug Day. In particular, we reiterate our call on the CND to establish a standing item in its agenda to address the human rights impacts of drug policies; and on UNODC to:

1. ensure that human rights are part of its constant monitoring work, including through the inclusion in the World Drug Report of a specific chapter on human rights, and of updated information on use of the death penalty for drug-related offences,
2. incorporate an explicit commitment to promote abolition of the death penalty (both generally and for drug-related offences specifically) in its forthcoming strategy; and
3. ensure that its cooperation with retentionist countries does not risk contributing to the use of the death penalty, in line with UN policy.

1. Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran
2. ACAT, Liberia
3. Africa Network of People who Use Drugs (AfricaNPUD), Africa
4. AIVL, Australia 
5. Akzept e.V. Bundesverband für akzeptierende Drogenarbeit und humane  Drogenpolitik, Germany 
6. Amnesty International, Global 
7. Anti-Death Penalty Asia Network (ADPAN), Malaysia and Philippines, Asia Pacific 
8. Capital Punishment Justice Project (CPJP), Australia 
9. Center for Legal Support and Inmates’ Rehabilitation (CELSIR) 
10. Center of Legal and Social Studies (CELS), Argentina 
11. Coalition of Somali Human Rights Defenders (CSHRD), Somalia 
12. Colegio de Abogados y Abogadas de Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico 
13. Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide (CCDPW), Global 
14. Correlation-European Harm Reduction Network, Europe 
15. CrimeInfo, Japan 
16. Dejusticia, Colombia 
17. Death Penalty Focus (DPF), United States of America 
18. Doctors for Drug Policy Reform (D4DPR), Global 
19. Drug Policy Alliance, United States of America 
20. Drug Policy Australia 
21. Drug Science, United Kingdom 
22. Elementa, Colombia and Mexico 
23. European Saudi Organization for Human Rights (ESOHR), Saudi Arabia 
24. Fédération Addiction, France 
25. Forum Droghe, Italy 
26. German Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (GCADP), Germany 
27. Groupement romand d’études des addictions (GREA), Switzerland 
28. Hands off Cain, Global 
29. Harm Reduction Australia 
30. Harm Reduction International, Global 
31. HAYAT, Malaysia 
32. HIV Legal Network / Réseau juridique VIH, Canada 
33. Humaania päihdepolitiikkaa ry, Finland 
34. IHRNGO (Iran Human Rights), Iran 
35. Instituto RIA, AC, Mexico 
36. International Drug Policy Consortium, Global 
37. Italian Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, Italy 
38. Italian Federation for Human Rights (FIDU), Italy 
39. Japan Advocacy Network for Drug Policy, Japan 
40. Journey of Hope…From Violence to Healing, United States of America 
41. LDH (Ligue des droits de l’Homme/droits humains), France 
42. Legalize NL, Amsterdam 
43. Lembaga Bantuan Hukum Masyarakat, Indonesia 
44. Lifespark – movement against the death penalty, Switzerland 
45. My Brain My Choice, Germany 
46. New York NGO Committee on Drugs (NYNGOC), Global 
47. Parliamentarians for Global Action (PGA), Global 
48. Redemption Pakistan, Pakistan 
49. Reset – Drug Policy and Human Rights, Argentina 
50. Richmond Fellowship Nepal 
51. Recovering Nepal 
52. Rótin (The Root), Iceland 
53. Safer Youth Norway 
54. Schildower Kreis, Germany 
55. Scottish Drugs Forum, Scotland 
56. SPINN: Suar Perempuan Lingkar Napza Nusantara, Indonesia 
57. StoptheDrugWar.org, United States of America 
58. The French Collective for the Liberation of Mumia Abu Jamal 
59. The Rights Practice, United Kingdom 
60. Together against the death penalty (ECPM), Global 
61. Transform Drug Policy Foundation, UK 
62. World Coalition Against the Death Penalty, Global 
63. Youth RISE International, Global