Abolition of the death penalty remains high on the Council of Europe’s political agenda. For the Council of Europe, abolition does not stop at Europe’s borders.

The Council of Europe has created a death penalty free zone in its 46 member states. It has been more than a quarter of a century since the last execution in 1997.

In the early 1980s, the Council of Europe became a pioneer for the abolition of capital punishment, considering it to be a grave violation of human rights. The organisation’s Parliamentary Assembly gradually persuaded governments to help Europe become the first region in the world to permanently outlaw the death penalty. The prohibition of the death penalty has also become a precondition for membership since the 1990s.

In 1983, the Council of Europe adopted the first legally binding instrument providing for the unconditional abolition of the death penalty in peacetime: Protocol No. 6 to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). This text is currently ratified by all 46 member States.

In 2002, the Council of Europe adopted Protocol No. 13 to the ECHR concerning the abolition of the death penalty in all circumstances, in other words also in time of war or of imminent threat of war. Reservations to and derogations from the Protocol are not possible. The Protocol entered into force on 1 July 2003. It has to date been signed and ratified by 45 member States.

The European Court of Human Rights has developed a significant caselaw on the abolition of the death penalty, relating in particular to cases of extradition : see the information document (factsheet) about the abolition of the death penalty.

At the Reykjavik Summit, held on 16-17 May 2023, it was decided to strengthen the Council of Europe’s work on the abolition of death penalty (the Reykjavik Declaration recalls that “the Council of Europe has played a crucial role to ensure that Europe is a death penalty-free zone” and states that “it should pursue the fight against the reintroduction of the death penalty, and in favour of its universal abolition, in all places and in all circumstances”). 

To know more about the main activities and projects of the Council of Europe on the abolition of the death penalty, which involve numerous interactions with the civil society : Abolition of the death penalty (coe.int)