Forty years ago, France abolished the death penalty. On September 17, 1981, Robert Badinter, Minister of Justice, delivered a brilliant argument against the death penalty before the National Assembly, which voted the following day to abolish it by a margin of 363 to 117. At the time, France was only the 35th country in the world to turn its back on capital punishment in its criminal justice system. But since then, thanks to the global abolitionist movement, 73 more countries have taken that step. Today, 108 countries have abolished the death penalty for all crimes, and 144 have abolished it in law or in practice, according to Amnesty International, or more than two-thirds of the world's countries.

As our map shows, the remaining one-third that still needs to be convinced is mainly located in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. The countries that execute the most prisoners The countries where the death penalty is still in use include China, Iran, Egypt, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia. The death penalty is rare in Europe and the Americas—with the notable exceptions of Belarus, Guyana, Cuba, and the United States. The most recent countries to have abolished the death penalty are Guinea (2016), Mongolia (2017), and Chad (2020).