UN Warns of Sharp Rise in 2025 Executions Despite Global Shift Away From Death Penalty

“My Office monitored an alarming increase in the use of the death penalty in 2025, especially for offences that do not meet the ‘most serious crimes’ threshold,” Türk said.

The United Nations has raised alarm over a sharp increase in executions worldwide in 2025, warning that a small number of retentionist States are driving a surge that runs counter to the global movement toward abolishing the death penalty.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said on Monday that his Office recorded a disturbing escalation in the use of capital punishment—often in violation of international law and accompanied by secrecy, discrimination, and the execution of people convicted of crimes committed as children.

“My Office monitored an alarming increase in the use of the death penalty in 2025, especially for offences that do not meet the ‘most serious crimes’ threshold,” Türk said. “These practices undermine fundamental human rights and international legal standards.”

Drug-related executions fuel global spike

According to the UN, the global increase was driven largely by a rise in executions for drug-related offences that do not involve intentional killing—offences that fall outside the scope permitted under international law.

“This is not only incompatible with international law, but also ineffective in deterring crime,” Türk said.

In Iran, at least 1,500 people were reportedly executed in 2025, with nearly 47 percent linked to drug offences. Türk described the scale and pace of executions as indicative of the death penalty being used as a tool of State intimidation, with disproportionate impacts on ethnic minorities and migrants.

In Saudi Arabia, at least 356 executions were carried out in 2025—surpassing the previous record set in 2024. Seventy-eight percent were for drug-related crimes following the resumption of such executions in late 2022. At least two individuals were executed for crimes committed as children, raising serious concerns over violations of children’s rights.

Rising concerns across multiple regions

The United States carried out 47 executions in 2025, the highest number in 16 years. The expanded use of gas asphyxiation, first introduced in 2024, raised concerns about torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment.

In Afghanistan, public executions continued in breach of international law. On 11 April 2025, four people convicted of murder were executed in sports stadiums in Badghis, Nimroz, and Farah provinces. Since August 2021, de facto authorities have conducted multiple public executions.

At least 24 people were executed in Somalia, and 17 in Singapore. In China and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, executions remain shrouded in secrecy, preventing accurate reporting. Belarus has expanded capital offences under new national security and terrorism-related legislation.

In Israel, legislative proposals seek to expand the use of the death penalty through mandatory provisions applying exclusively to Palestinians, raising serious concerns over due process, equality before the law, and compliance with international human rights and humanitarian law. Executions carried out by Hamas in Gaza were also condemned as blatant human rights violations.

Encouraging abolitionist steps persist

Despite the troubling rise, several States took positive steps in 2025 toward limiting or abolishing capital punishment.

• Vietnam reduced the number of death-eligible offences

• Pakistan removed two non-lethal capital offences

• Zimbabwe abolished the death penalty for ordinary crimes on 31 December 2024

• Kenya launched a legislative review of capital punishment

• Malaysia’s resentencing process reduced the number of people facing execution by over 1,000

• Kyrgyzstan’s Constitutional Court reaffirmed the prohibition of the death penalty, ruling attempts to reintroduce it unconstitutional

Call for immediate moratorium

Türk reiterated that the death penalty is neither an effective crime-prevention tool nor compatible with human dignity.

“The death penalty can lead to the execution of innocent people,” he said. “In practice, it is often applied arbitrarily and discriminatorily, in violation of fundamental principles of equality before the law.”

The High Commissioner called on all States that retain the death penalty to establish an immediate moratorium on executions, commute existing death sentences, and move decisively toward full abolition.