Capital punishment in Europe
Capital punishment has been completely abolished in all European countries except for Belarus and Russia, the latter of which has a moratorium and has not carried out an execution since August 1996. The complete ban on capital punishment is enshrined in both the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and two widely adopted protocols of the European Convention on Human Rights of the Council of Europe, and is thus considered a central value. Of all modern European countries, San Marino, Portugal, and the Netherlands were the first to abolish capital punishment, whereas only Belarus still practises capital punishment in some form or another. In 2012, Latvia became the last EU member state to abolish capital punishment in wartime.
In Russia, capital punishment has been indefinitely suspended since 1996.
The last execution in Europe took place in Belarus, which carried out one execution in 2022.
Abolition
Legal instruments in Europe
The Council of Europe has two main instruments against capital punishment: Protocol 6 and Protocol 13., opened for signing in 1983, which prohibits capital punishment during peacetime has been ratified by all members of the Council of Europe.
, opened for signing in 2002, prohibits capital punishment in all circumstances. All member states of the Council of Europe have ratified it except Azerbaijan, which have signed but not yet ratified. Still, Azerbaijan had already abolished capital punishment in 1998. Armenia is the latest country to ratify Protocol 13 in February 2024, having however abolished the death penalty since 2003.
The 21st century
The only country in Europe that continues to execute in the 21st century is Belarus.No member of the Council of Europe has carried out executions in the 21st century. The last execution on the present day territory of the Council of Europe took place in 1997 in Ukraine.
History
Abolition began to appear in European history during the 19th century, but has only been a real trend since the end of the Second World War when human rights became a particular priority. The Kingdom of Italy had abolished the death penalty for civilians with the adoption of the Zanardelli Penal Code of 1889, but the Fascist regime reintroduced capital punishment in 1926, then expanding its range of cases with the 1930 Penal Code. In the United Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia and Portugal the death penalty had been abolished for civil crimes in 1864 and 1867 respectively, but was more or less reinstated during the 20th century. In the Netherlands, too, it was declared "cruel and uncivilized" and abolished, again for civil crimes alone, in 1870. In San Marino, after not having been physically carried out for centuries, it was definitively abolished for all crimes in 1865.The European Convention on Human Rights was adopted in 1950, but some countries took many years to ratify it. The United Kingdom retained the death penalty for high treason until 1998; however, this technicality was superseded by the absolute ban on the death penalty in 1976. William Joyce was the last person to be put to death for high treason in the UK, on 3 January 1946 at Wandsworth Prison.
A moratorium on the death penalty has been in place in Russia since 1 January 2010. According to the 19 November 2009 decision of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation, the death penalty shall not be practiced in Russia at any time before the ratification of the above-mentioned protocol. The Constitutional Court has also clarified that the decision is not an extension of the moratorium but the abolition of the capital punishment, since it will be no longer possible to practice it legally.
2009 was the first year that no one was executed anywhere in Europe, however in March 2010, Belarus executed the last two people on its death row.
The European Union has long since been opposed to the death penalty, supporting the European Convention, and its 2000 Charter of Fundamental Rights included an absolute ban on the death penalty in all circumstances. The Charter has been made legally binding by the Treaty of Lisbon as it was fully ratified and became effective on 1 December 2009. The treaty also has a provision for the EU to join the Council of Europe and accede to the European Convention on Human Rights. The EU has been an active promoter of abolition worldwide and has been promoting a United Nations moratorium on the death penalty; however some EU member state such as Poland have opposed such moves. The only member state to have performed executions in Europe whilst a Member of the EU or EEC is France, last shooting a prisoner in 1963 and last beheading one with the guillotine in 1977. The death penalty was abolished in France in 1981. All other states had effectively abolished Capital Punishment before joining the EU, at least in their metropolitan European Territory. Two hangings were carried out later in 1977 in Bermuda, a Special Territory of the EU as an Overseas Territory of the United Kingdom,. Due to later abolition dates in countries that joined later, there have been more recent executions in places that are now part of the EU, the most recent example being Latvia which shot a prisoner in 1996.
The Council of Europe has made abolition of the death penalty a prerequisite for membership. As a result, no execution has taken place on the territory of the organisation's member states since 1997. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe continues to monitor the capital punishment issue. The current General Rapporteur on the abolition of the death penalty for the Parliamentary Assembly is German Member of Parliament Marina Schuster.
| Country | Method | Year of last use | Abolished | Year of last use | Abolished | ||
 Former countries
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