About the project
"The Death Penalty, Human Rights and moral reasons for punishment" is a research projectet conducted by post.doc. Lill Scherdin.
The research project studies the death penalty in Asia and the Western world, particularly focusing on key states such as: Japan, Vietnam and Louisianna, USA.
Objectives
The objective is to gain comparative knowledge on capital punishment and the abolition of the death penalty.
Background
90 percent of all the executions in the world takes place in Asia. Capital punishment is a controversial topic in very many ccountries, also in countries having and practising this form of punishment. According to Amnesty International, in 2008 there were 2390 prisoners executed in 25 countries, and at least 8864 were sentenced to death in 52 countries. Amnesty believes the numbers to be much higher.
Asia, with its high number of executions, has a deceicive impact on how the use of capital punishment will develop worldwide. To understand capital punishment as a part of the Criminal Justice System as well as a way of governance, one needs to study Asia.
According to Amnesty International, 139 countries has in recent years abolished the death penality - either in law or de facto, in the sense that they have not executed anyone in the last 10 years. This critical mass of countries having abolished, might change the context for the debate inside countries still retaining the death penality.
Traditionally, countries which have wanted to uphold the death penalty have done so for different reasons where autonomy and a sense of national identity and strength have been important. However, autonomy and strenght is gradually less associated with the performance of executions, thus the contexts as well as the national debates are changing.
This is an important moment in time for research on capital punishment in order to influence policies and increase our understanding on how capital punishment relates to other aspects of governing - nationally and internationally. Hereunder, an important focus is the impact of human rights on national systems of governance. Such a frame gives new direction to research on capital punishment, its consequences and moral legitimacy - nationally, regionally and globally.
Financing
The project is funded by the Norwegian Research Council and the Royal Norwegian Foreign Department.
Cooperation
The Vietnam programme, Norwegian Centre for Human Rights.