The number of executions worldwide fell in 2016

By THE DATA TEAM

TRACKING the use of the death penalty is not easy. In some countries, information about its use is a state secret. Elsewhere, as in Iran, the government’s official figures are considerably lower than those reported by the media. The best estimates, published on April 11th by Amnesty International, a human-rights organisation, suggest that at least 1,032 executions occurred in 2016. That is a big drop from the 26-year high of 1,634 documented in 2015. The United States has fallen out of the top five for the first time. And two countries, Benin and Nauru, ended their use of the death penalty, making abolitionist states a majority of the world’s countries for the first time—though they still do not represent anything close to a majority of the world’s population.

The continuing prevalence of the death penalty is largely due to its popularity in a single region: 11 of the 23 countries where executions took place last year are Asian. China is believed to be the world’s leading executioner by far, although Amnesty does not count the country in its annual total because the government keeps the numbers a closely guarded secret. Vietnam has also refused to disclose its statistics, but most external analysts have assumed that the country executed only a handful of people per year. In February, however, Vietnam’s public-security ministry revealed new figures that were far higher than prior estimates: according to local media reports, it said that the country had executed 429 people between August 2013 and June 2016. Even under the (presumably incorrect) assumption that Vietnam did not execute anyone in the first seven months of 2013 or the final six of 2016, that would place it fourth in the world for that four-year period, trailing only China, Iran and Saudi Arabia.