Comparative Capital Punishment

Research Handbooks in Comparative Law series

编辑by Carol S. Steiker, Harvard Law School and Jordan M. Steiker, The University of Texas School of Law, US

Comparative Capital Punishment offers a set of in-depth, critical and comparative contributions addressing death practices around the world. Despite the dramatic decline of the death penalty in the last half of the twentieth century, capital punishment remains in force in a substantial number of countries around the globe. This research handbook explores both the forces behind the stunning recent rejection of the death penalty, as well as the changing shape of capital practices where it is retained. The expert contributors address the social, political, economic, and cultural influences on both retention and abolition of the death penalty and consider the distinctive possibilities and pathways to worldwide abolition.

‘This book is a welcome addition to the publisher’s Research Handbooks in Comparative Law series. The book’s editors are law professors at prestigious US law schools, and each has engaged in scholarly and practical work on capital punishment issues. The book explores the commonalities and differences among countries in the worldwide movement away from the use of capital punishment. It does this with chapters that consider both general and specific topics dealing with capital punishment law and administration.’
– Philip Reichel, Criminal Law and Criminal Justice Books

‘The kaleidoscopic contributions to this book provide more comparative insight into capital punishment than any other volume. The Steikers have recruited an all-star team of writers, and they have delivered on everything from methods of execution and miscarriages of justice to capital clemency and international norms. If you want to think better about the death penalty’s past, present, and future, read this magnificent book.’
– David T. Johnson, University of Hawaii and co-author of The Next Frontier: National Development, Political Change, and the Death Penalty in Asia