A retentionist country is one that keeps the death penalty in its criminal code for ordinary crimes and has carried out at least one execution in the past ten years. By that definition, at least 15 nations qualified in 2024, the lowest number on record for the second year in a row. Dozens more keep capital statutes on the books without using them, which puts them in a different category entirely.
The Ten-Year Test
International monitoring bodies draw the line at a decade of inactivity. A country that still has death penalty laws but hasn’t executed anyone in more than ten years is classified as abolitionist in practice, not retentionist. It remains legally retentionist until it formally repeals its capital statutes, but the international community treats it as functionally different from a government actively putting people to death.
Two further categories sit alongside these. Some countries have abolished capital punishment for ordinary crimes while keeping it available for exceptional circumstances such as wartime or military offenses. Others have abolished it entirely, with no death penalty provision for any crime. These classifications appear in annual reports from United Nations bodies and human rights organizations, and they shape diplomatic pressure, treaty negotiations, and foreign aid discussions.
Which Countries Are Retentionist Today
A small group of governments accounts for the overwhelming majority of executions worldwide. China executes more people than every other country combined, though the Chinese government treats execution figures as a state secret, making precise counts impossible to verify. Iran recorded at least 972 executions in 2024, roughly two-thirds of all publicly documented executions globally. Saudi Arabia recorded at least 345. Iraq and Yemen rounded out the top five.
The geographic concentration is stark. The Middle East and parts of East and Southeast Asia account for most global executions. Europe has effectively no retentionist countries; Belarus is the sole exception, having carried out executions in recent years. South America has moved almost entirely toward abolition. Africa presents a mixed picture, with many countries retaining the death penalty in law but rarely or never carrying it out, which places most of them in the abolitionist-in-practice category rather than the retentionist one.
The United States as a Retentionist Nation
The United States is the only Western democracy that actively retains and uses the death penalty, which places it in unusual company on the global stage. Twenty-seven states currently have capital punishment statutes, though four of those have governor-imposed moratoriums blocking executions. Actual executions skew heavily toward Southern states, with Texas historically carrying out more than any other.
Federal authority to seek and carry out death sentences runs through the Department of Justice, and the executive branch’s stance can shift sharply between administrations. In December 2024, President Biden commuted 37 of the 40 federal death row sentences to life without parole.1The American Presidency Project. Statement on Federal Death Row Commutations In January 2025, President Trump signed an executive order directing the Department of Justice to prioritize seeking death sentences and to resume federal executions, rescinding the earlier moratorium and authorizing capital prosecution of 44 defendants.2The White House. Restoring The Death Penalty And Protecting Public Safety The Department of Justice has broad discretion in deciding which cases to pursue as capital, and that discretion is shaped heavily by whoever occupies the White House.3United States Department of Justice. The Justice Department Takes Actions to Strengthen the Federal Death Penalty
What Retentionist Countries Execute People For
The range of capital offenses varies widely across the retentionist group, and this is where the gap between international standards and national practice is widest. Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights permits capital punishment only for “the most serious crimes.”4OHCHR. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights The UN Human Rights Committee has interpreted that phrase to mean offenses involving intentional killing.
In practice, retentionist governments go well beyond that. Intentional murder is the most common capital crime globally, but 34 countries retain the death penalty for drug trafficking, which international bodies have repeatedly said falls outside the “most serious crimes” threshold. Drug-related executions have become a major driver of the global totals. In 2024, roughly 40% of all known executions worldwide were for drug offenses, with Iran responsible for the vast majority of those.
Capital Offenses Under U.S. Federal Law
At the federal level in the United States, the death penalty applies to treason, espionage, and certain murders committed under federal jurisdiction. The treason statute reaches anyone who owes allegiance to the United States and levies war against it or aids its enemies.5Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 2381 – Treason The espionage statute authorizes a death sentence when the offense results in the death of a U.S. intelligence agent or directly concerns nuclear weapons, military satellites, or other critical defense systems.6Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 794 – Gathering or Delivering Defense Information to Aid Foreign Government
The Federal Death Penalty Act, codified at 18 U.S.C. § 3591, defines the broader categories of death-eligible offenses. For homicide, the defendant must have intentionally killed, intentionally caused serious injury resulting in death, or knowingly engaged in violence creating a grave risk of death. For drug offenses, the statute reaches defendants in large-scale continuing criminal enterprises involving quantities at least twice the statutory threshold.7Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 3591 – Sentence of Death Eligibility is only the first step. Before a death sentence can be imposed, prosecutors must prove at least one statutory aggravating factor under 18 U.S.C. § 3592, and the jury must weigh any mitigating circumstances the defendant presents.8Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 US Code 3592 – Mitigating and Aggravating Factors to Be Considered in Determining Whether a Sentence of Death Is Justified
The Uniform Code of Military Justice separately lists 15 offenses punishable by death, though many carry capital eligibility only during wartime. No U.S. military execution has been carried out since 1961.
Why the Label Matters in International Law
No binding instrument of international law imposes a universal ban on capital punishment. The ICCPR, ratified by most of the world’s nations, permits the death penalty under narrow conditions: only for the most serious crimes, only after a final judgment by a competent court, and never for offenses committed by anyone under 18 or against pregnant women. The UN Human Rights Committee’s General Comment No. 36 tightened that interpretation further, saying capital punishment should be applied only in “the most exceptional cases” and under “the strictest limits.”9Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. General Comment No. 36 on Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, on the Right to Life
The closest thing to a binding abolition treaty is the Second Optional Protocol to the ICCPR, adopted in 1989. Its Article 1 reads: “No one within the jurisdiction of a State Party to the present Protocol shall be executed.” As of mid-2026, 92 countries have ratified it.10United Nations Treaty Collection. Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Aiming at the Abolition of the Death Penalty The retentionist nations, including the United States, China, and Iran, have not signed it, so it creates no obligation for them. That gap is what retentionist governments point to when challenged: absent ratification of a specific abolition treaty, national sovereignty allows each country to maintain or abolish capital punishment on its own terms.
Foreign nationals facing capital charges in a retentionist country have one additional safeguard under Article 36 of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, which requires that detained foreign nationals be informed of their right to contact their home country’s consulate. Failures to provide this notification have generated major legal disputes, though U.S. courts have rarely overturned death sentences on this basis alone.
The categorical limits that constrain the United States, such as the Supreme Court’s bars on executing juvenile offenders or people with intellectual disabilities, apply only within the U.S. legal system. Other retentionist countries may execute both groups, though doing so violates the standards set out in Article 6 of the ICCPR.