EU: 60 countries join Alliance for Torture-Free Trade; China and US not participating

The European Union is spearheading an effort to limit the global trade of torture instruments and tools used to carry out executions.

Almost 60 countries have committed to join the Alliance for Torture-Free Trade, which formally launched at the United Nations on Monday.

Countries with some of the highest numbers of executions, including China and the US, are not participating.

But supporters of the initiative say the alliance is a start.

Goods such as shock belts, spiked batons and gas chambers are among the products targeted by the movement, which is also backed by Argentina and Mongolia.

Some of the items can be found for purchase online, which EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom called "unacceptable".

"I'm not naive. I know you can torture a person with a pencil if you want to, but this is a way to at least limit the access of these products," Ms Malmstrom told the BBC.

Members of the alliance plan to collaborate on laws curbing trade in these goods and to share information about trade routes. Ms Malmstrom said she also hopes it will isolate non-participants politically.

The UK, Canada, Brazil and Mexico are among the 57 countries that have committed to the alliance so far, her office said.

Go global

The initiative builds on earlier EU restrictions on the trade in torture equipment and the export of drugs that can be used to carry out lethal injections.

Those new rules have led to shortages of execution drugs in the US and contributed to a decline in the number of executions there.

The US put 20 people to death last year, the lowest number since 1991, according to Amnesty International.

"We have very tough legislation in the European Union ... but it's not enough," Ms Malmstrom told the BBC. "We need to go global."

Deborah Denno, a professor at Fordham Law School in New York, said formation of the alliance suggests that more countries are questioning the use of torture and the death penalty - even if the practices persist.

The drive should also have a practical effect, helping close off places outside of Europe where the US could look to import drugs for execution, she added.

"This looks like a really positive development," she said.

China carried out the highest number of executions in 2016, followed by Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Pakistan, Amnesty International said. The US ranked seventh after Egypt.

A spokesperson for the US State Department declined to comment. Chinese officials could not be reached for comment.

If it's credible, a trade boycott may have some effect, said Robert Blecker, a professor at New York Law School and author of the "Death of Punishment". But he said he thinks the alliance does a disservice by equating the death penalty and torture.

"They may think by doing that they emphasize appropriately how morally bad the death penalty is, but I think by equating them they underemphasize how distinctively morally bad torture is," he said.

"Torture is not just," he added. "The death penalty ... can be."

Source: BBC News, September 18, 2017

⚑ | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com.

Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE!

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde

Comments

Florida executes Dominick Occhicone

Florida executes 2 men in a day. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has made Florida's death chamber the nation’s busiest at the end of his final term. STARKE, Fla. — Florida on Tuesday became the first state in nearly a decade to carry out two executions in a single day, the last an 80-year-old man who was the second-oldest inmate known to receive a lethal injection in modern U.S. history. Hours earlier, the state executed a former police officer convicted of killing a young girl.

Florida | 49 years on death row, killer of Bonita Springs teen learns death date

A Fort Myers man on death row for nearly five decades learned his execution date as Gov. Ron DeSantis signed his order Thursday, July 30. Harold Gene Lucas, then 24, shot and killed his 16-year-old girlfriend, Anthia Jill Piper in Bonita Springs on August 14, 1976. Lucas was 24 when he was charged in Piper's shooting death at her parents' home on Aug. 14, 1976. The execution is set for Sept. 1 in a state that has accelerated its pace under DeSantis the past two years, with a record of 19 executions in 2025. Piper was shot seven times by Lucas, who claimed to be intoxicated.

Florida executes James Duckett

Double execution: 1st of 2 inmates is put to death in Florida Florida has executed James Duckett, a 68-year-old former cop convicted of killing an 11-year-old girl in 1987. The state is set to execute an 80-year-old man 6 hours later for a 1986 murder. Florida carried out the 1st double execution in more than 60 years, executing former police officer James Duckett and later scheduling the execution of 80‑year‑old Dominick Occhicone, amid Governor Ron DeSantis’s aggressive push to increase death penalties in the state. Florida has put to death the 1st of 2 inmates in the state's 1st double execution in more than 60 years amid an aggressive death penalty push by Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Iran erects iron gallows in Isfahan protest square

An iron gallows has been erected in an Isfahan square where protests erupted in January. Families of several of the 10 remaining prisoners sentenced to death have been summoned for farewell visits. An iron gallows erected in Ali-Khani Square in the central Iranian city of Isfahan has raised fears that the regime is preparing to publicly execute protesters arrested during nationwide demonstrations in January. Sources who spoke with Iran International said large numbers of security forces had been deployed in the area, while the families of several prisoners sentenced to death had been summoned to the prison for farewell visits.

Idaho | How Bryan Kohberger’s Guilty Plea Move Could Be His Death Sentence

If Bryan Kohberger successfully withdraws his guilty plea and goes to trial for the murders of four University of Idaho students, it could lead to him being sentenced to death, experts told Newsweek . Kohberger, 31, filed a handwritten petition on Monday from the Idaho Maximum Security Penitentiary, where he is serving four consecutive life sentences for the murders of Kaylee Goncalves, Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle and Madison Mogen in a rental home near the university's campus in Moscow, Idaho, in 2022. Kohberger pleaded guilty to the fatal stabbings just over a year ago, a month before jury selection was set to start.

Florida | Former warden recalls botched electrocution that left him battling PTSD for 13 years and turned him into an abolitionist

Ron McAndrew anticipated it would be just another standard execution. He had been assigned to carry out the death of Cuban refugee Pedro Medina via electric chair within the confines of Florida State Prison. Fifteen years had passed since Medina's conviction for the murder of 52-year-old Dorothy James, and McAndrew's responsibility was to oversee the administration of lethal electrical currents to his brain. Having already supervised two previous executions using the identical procedure and raised in a community that strongly supported capital punishment, he expected a swift conclusion with justice delivered.

Two Executions In Six Hours: Florida Set For Historical Double Execution Tuesday

Florida is preparing to execute two death row inmates on Tuesday, July 28, in an action that would mark the state’s first double execution in more than 60 years. Former police officer James Duckett, 68, is scheduled to die by lethal injection at 12 p.m., followed six hours later by 80-year-old Dominick Occhicone at 6 p.m. If carried out, these will mark the 39th and 40th executions under Gov. Ron DeSantis and the 11th and 12th in the state since the beginning of 2026. In response, Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (FADP) has launched petition and letter-writing efforts asking DeSantis to halt both procedures. The group has organized two public vigils outside Florida State Prison in Raiford, set for 11 a.m. and 5 p.m., contingent on whether stays are issued.

Saudi Arabia | New Executions of Ethiopian Migrants

At Least 17 Executed for Non-Lethal Drug-Related Offenses in 2026 (Beirut) – Saudi authorities executed five Ethiopian migrants for nonlethal drug-related offenses on July 27, 2026, without due process, Human Rights Watch said today. Saudi authorities have executed at least 17 Ethiopian nationals since the beginning of 2026 on drug-related charges. At least 79 more remain at imminent risk of execution on similar charges. Saudi authorities have executed at least 116 people in 2026 as of July 27, according to the European Saudi Organization for Human Rights.

North Korea | 'I was only 9': North Korean defector recalls childhood memory of public execution

Kim Eun-joo was 9 years old when her teacher stopped their lesson and told the class to follow her outside. The children were marched to a public execution ground in North Korea. “I would cry even when our family dog died,” Kim said in a recent interview with The Korea Times. “But the first time I watched humans killing a human, I had no words for what I was feeling. It was the most brutal scene I have ever seen, in any movie or in real life.” The memory has stayed with her ever since. Now a human rights advocate after defecting from North Korea, Kim recently brought that childhood scene to the 9th World Congress Against the Death Penalty in Paris, where North Korea’s use of public executions and capital punishment was officially placed on the agenda for the first time.

19 July 1943 | Auschwitz's Largest Public Hanging: 12 Polish Prisoners Executed in Escape Reprisal

OSWIECIM, Poland — The SS carried out the largest public hanging in Auschwitz history on July 19, 1943, executing 12 Polish prisoners before other inmates as collective punishment for escapes and civilian contacts. The victims, all from the camp’s surveyors’ labor unit, were hanged on gallows built in front of the camp kitchen during an Auschwitz I roll call. The SS orchestrated this reprisal following prisoner escapes from the surveyors’ detail and unauthorized communication between inmates and civilians. Camp authorities used the recent escapes as a pretext to impose collective punishment.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog