Why India Voted Against a UN Pause on the Death Penalty

On November 13, India voted against a draft United Nations resolution calling for a pause in executions. At the same meeting in New York, it backed a separate draft condemning unlawful killings, while objecting to a paragraph that referred to a UN expert’s report on the death penalty. India’s argument was that a court can order an execution after a fair trial. The UN expert’s argument was that the suffering inflicted by capital punishment amounts to torture or ill-treatment.

In Madhya Pradesh, a man named Anokhilal went through three trials in a rape and murder case. Two ended in death sentences. The third ended in acquittal in March 2024, after he had spent about 11 years in jail. In January 2025, the Supreme Court recorded that the state had filed no appeal and that his acquittal was final. His case shows how much can depend on a court taking another look.

Why did India vote against a pause in executions?

New Delhi argues that countries should be able to set their own criminal penalties within their international obligations. It says India uses the death penalty in the “rarest of rare” cases and has safeguards, including mandatory review by a higher court. India also voted against earlier General Assembly moratorium resolutions in 2016, 2018 and 2024. The 2024 vote in the full Assembly was 130 in favour, 32 against and 22 abstentions. China, Pakistan, Singapore and the US also voted no that year.

The latest draft cleared the General Assembly’s human rights committee by 133 votes to 33, with 16 abstentions. The US also opposed it. Before the vote, the committee accepted a Singapore amendment reaffirming countries’ right to set penalties in line with international law. Mexico, which introduced the draft, argued that a pause would give governments time to strengthen safeguards and prevent irreversible miscarriages of justice.

What would a UN moratorium actually do?

A moratorium is a pause. In this case, the draft asks countries to stop carrying out executions as a step towards abolishing capital punishment. The November 13 vote was at committee stage. The draft goes to the full General Assembly, where a vote is expected in December. Even if adopted, it would be a nonbinding recommendation.

Why did India object to one paragraph in the other draft?

India backed the draft condemning extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, which are unlawful killings. Its objection concerned paragraph 6. According to ANI’s account, the paragraph asks governments to take into account recommendations from Morris Tidball-Binz, the UN expert on unlawful executions. His report argues that the death penalty inflicts severe suffering, including the anguish of awaiting execution, and that this amounts to torture or ill-treatment.

Bhavika Mangalanandan, India’s First Secretary at the UN, called it a “travesty to term it state-inflicted death”. She argued that an execution imposed through due legal process belongs in a different legal category from an unlawful killing. The dispute is about whether the legal process can make the punishment itself lawful under international human rights law.

What does international law say?

Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights protects the right to life. In countries that retain capital punishment, it restricts death sentences to the “most serious crimes” and requires a final judgment by a competent court. The UN committee that monitors the treaty interprets that threshold as crimes of extreme gravity involving intentional killing. Drug offences fall outside that interpretation.

Article 7 prohibits torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Tidball-Binz argues that capital punishment itself is incompatible with that prohibition. India disputes his interpretation.

What does “rarest of rare” mean in an Indian courtroom?

In Bachan Singh v. State of Punjab in 1980, the Supreme Court held that life imprisonment is the rule for murder and a death sentence is an exception. A judge must consider the crime and the person being sentenced, including circumstances that weigh in favour of a lesser sentence. Those can include their background, mental health and prospects of rehabilitation.

A Sessions Court must send every death sentence to the High Court for confirmation, even if the prisoner has filed no appeal. The High Court can uphold the sentence, change it or overturn the conviction. The case can reach the Supreme Court. A prisoner can also petition the President for mercy.

How often do those safeguards work at trial?

The Square Circle Clinic at NALSAR University of Law examined 83 cases in which trial courts imposed death sentences in 2025. It found that 79 fell short of the Supreme Court’s requirements for gathering and considering material relevant to sentencing. In October 2026, the Supreme Court withdrew an April direction that would have required trial courts to obtain formal reports on factors for and against a death sentence in every eligible case. The National Legal Services Authority had argued that the blanket requirement was unworkable.

How many death sentences end in executions in India?

In 2025, trial courts sentenced 128 people to death, and 574 people were on death row on December 31. At that point, cases involving 478 people were pending in the High Courts, where the median wait from sentencing was more than two years. During 2025, the Supreme Court confirmed no death sentences for the third year running and acquitted 10 people who had been sentenced to death.

India recorded no executions in 2025. Its last known executions were on March 20, 2020, when four men convicted in the 2012 Delhi gang rape and murder case were hanged.

What have other countries done?

Singapore uses the death penalty for some drug trafficking offences and argues that it deters trafficking. Amnesty International recorded 17 executions there in 2025. Malaysia removed the mandatory death penalty in 2023, giving judges discretion where a death sentence had previously been compulsory. It retained capital punishment and backed the UN pause in 2024. Lebanon went more than two decades without executions before abolishing the death penalty by law in August 2026.

Does the death penalty deter crime?

Singapore’s government cites surveys and research on drug traffickers to support its position. For homicide, a US National Research Council review found that the studies it examined could not establish whether capital punishment raised, lowered or had no effect on murder rates. The two sets of evidence address different offences. The question for India is whether the threat of execution has a greater deterrent effect than life imprisonment for the same crime.

Can a death sentence be corrected in time?

In Japan, a court acquitted Iwao Hakamada in 2024 after he had spent 46 years on death row. The court found that evidence used to convict him had been fabricated. In India, a fresh look at the evidence eventually cleared Anokhilal. Both men lived to see their convictions overturned. An execution would have made that correction impossible to act on.

The full General Assembly will now weigh a pause in executions. In India, the immediate test of the safeguards New Delhi defended is in the courts already reviewing death sentences. They have to decide whether the conviction is sound and whether life imprisonment can be ruled out.