No, Italy does not have the death penalty. Capital punishment is banned absolutely under Article 27 of the Italian Constitution, with no exception for wartime or any other circumstance, and Italy is bound by several international treaties that reinforce that prohibition. Reintroducing it would require a constitutional overhaul and withdrawal from multiple human rights agreements.
The Constitutional Ban
Article 27, paragraph 4, of the Italian Constitution states plainly: “The death penalty shall not be permitted.”1Corte Costituzionale. Constitution of the Italian Republic As part of the Republic’s highest law, the provision cannot be set aside by ordinary legislation.
The 1948 text originally carved out a narrow exception for capital punishment under military law in wartime. Constitutional Law No. 1 of October 3, 2007, deleted that exception.1Corte Costituzionale. Constitution of the Italian Republic Since then the ban has been total. Not even a declaration of war would permit an Italian court to impose a death sentence.
How Italy Got Here
Italy was an early mover on abolition. The Zanardelli Penal Code, enacted in 1889 and effective January 1, 1890, eliminated the death penalty for all ordinary crimes in the newly unified country.
That progress was reversed under Fascism. In 1926, Mussolini’s government restored capital punishment for crimes against the state, and the 1931 Rocco Code extended it to certain violent common offenses.2Amnesty International. Abolition of the Death Penalty Worldwide Developments in 1994 The last executions on Italian soil took place on March 4, 1947, when three men convicted of a 1945 mass killing were shot by firing squad. The Constitution of the Italian Republic took effect on January 1, 1948, abolishing capital punishment for peacetime offenses.1Corte Costituzionale. Constitution of the Italian Republic
One holdout remained for decades. The Military Penal Code of War still authorized capital punishment for certain wartime offenses until Parliament replaced it with life imprisonment in October 1994.2Amnesty International. Abolition of the Death Penalty Worldwide Developments in 1994 The 2007 constitutional amendment then sealed the ban at the highest level.
Treaties That Reinforce the Ban
Italy is party to several international agreements that would each independently block any return to capital punishment:
- Protocol No. 6 to the European Convention on Human Rights, which abolishes the death penalty in peacetime.3Council of Europe. Protocol No. 6 to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms Concerning the Abolition of the Death Penalty
- Protocol No. 13 to the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibits the death penalty in all circumstances including wartime. Italy signed it in 2002 and ratified it in 2009.4Council of Europe. Protocol No. 13 to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms
- The Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, a UN treaty ratified by Italy in 1995, which commits parties to complete abolition.
What the Ban Means for Extradition
Italy’s prohibition reaches beyond its own courtrooms. Italian authorities will not extradite a person to a country where the charged offense carries a possible death sentence, and this holds even if the requesting state offers diplomatic assurances that it will not seek execution.
The Constitutional Court established the underlying principle in decision no. 54 of 1979, ruling that Italy cannot cooperate in punishments that would be unconstitutional at home. The court read Article 27 together with Article 3’s guarantee of non-discrimination, concluding that Italian authorities cannot subject a person to a worse outcome by handing them to a foreign government.5University of Oxford Law Faculty. Extradition and the Death Penalty – Perspectives from Italy
In the 1996 Venezia case the court went further, holding that “the rule of sufficient assurances” is “not constitutionally permissible” under Italian law.5University of Oxford Law Faculty. Extradition and the Death Penalty – Perspectives from Italy That puts Italy in a stricter position than many other abolitionist countries, which will extradite once they receive a promise that execution will not be sought.
The rule continues to drive outcomes. In two 2024 rulings on extradition requests from Pakistan for murder charges, the Italian Supreme Court rejected the requests because the offense carried the death penalty under Pakistani law, holding that such requests “ought to be rejected as such.”5University of Oxford Law Faculty. Extradition and the Death Penalty – Perspectives from Italy
The Maximum Penalty in Italy Today
With capital punishment unavailable, life imprisonment is the harshest sentence Italian law allows. A stricter variant, the ergastolo ostativo, applies to convictions for terrorism and organized crime offenses. It historically blocked access to conditional release and other prison benefits unless the prisoner cooperated with investigators, treating refusal to cooperate as an irrebuttable presumption of continued dangerousness.
In 2019, the European Court of Human Rights ruled in Marcello Viola v. Italy that this regime violated Article 3 of the European Convention by denying any realistic prospect of release. Italy responded with Law 199/2022, which allows prisoners serving ergastolo ostativo to apply for prison benefits and conditional release without cooperating, provided they can show they have cut all ties with the criminal organization and meet other strict conditions. Parole eligibility requires at least thirty years served.
Italy’s Push for a Global Moratorium
Italy has made worldwide abolition a diplomatic priority. Since 2007, the UN General Assembly has periodically adopted resolutions calling for a moratorium on executions, and Italy has helped drive each one.
In December 2024, the General Assembly’s Third Committee adopted the tenth such resolution, with Italy co-leading negotiations alongside Argentina on behalf of an interregional task force of more than 40 countries. The resolution drew support from 131 nations, a record.6Ministero degli Affari Esteri e della Cooperazione Internazionale. Tenth Resolution for a Moratorium on Executions Adopted at the UN Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani called the vote confirmation of the international community’s “strong signal towards progressively moving away from this unjust and inhuman practice.”7Rappresentanza Permanente d’Italia presso le Nazioni Unite. Adoption of the Tenth Resolution on a Universal Moratorium on the Death Penalty The resolutions are not binding, but they measure the direction of travel Italy has worked to sustain for nearly two decades.