European boycott of death penalty drugs lowers rate of US executions

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Guardian

European boycott of death penalty drugs lowers rate of US executions

New Death Penalty Information Center report claims there were 39 executions this year – the lowest number since 1994

Ed Pilkington in New York
theguardian.com, Thursday 19 December 2013 00.00 EST

The European-led boycott of medical drugs used by US corrections departments to execute prisoners is having such an impact that it has driven the number of executions to an almost all-time low, a leading authority on the death penalty has concluded.

The year-end report for 2013 from the Death Penalty Information Center, based in Washington, records that there were 39 executions this year – only the second time since 1994 that the number has fallen below 40. The report says a major factor behind the slump in judicial killings has been the difficulty states that still practice the death penalty are encountering in finding a consistent means of ending life.

California, Arkansas and North Carolina have all had effective moratoriums for the past seven years because they have failed to settle on a workable lethal injection protocol. Several other states are turning to untested drugs or to lethal medicines improvised in single batches by so-called “compounding pharmacies” that are not subject to federal regulations.

“The goal-posts keep shifting under the death penalty states,” said Richard Dieter, director of the Death Penalty Information Center and lead author of the report. “As soon as they move to a new protocol, the boycott spreads.”



Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/19/death-penalty-boycott-drugs-execution-new-low

[idwiyo]

1. k&r

[pampango]

2. From a 2011 Guardian article: Europe moves to block trade in medical drugs used in US executions

The European Commission has imposed tough new restrictions on the export of anaesthetics used to execute people in the US, in a move that will exacerbate the already extreme shortage of the drugs in many of the 34 states that still practice the death penalty.

The EC said its move, which follows restrictions introduced unilaterally by the UK in November 2010, was designed to forward the European Union's stated mission to abolish the death penalty around the world. "The decision today contributes to the wider EU efforts to abolish the death penalty worldwide," said the commission's vice president, Catherine Ashton.

In 2009 the only American manufacturer of sodium thiopental, the Illinois-based Hospira, suspended production because it was suffering commercially as a result of having its drug connected to executions. Then this summer, a Danish manufacturer of pentobarbital, Lundbeck, blocked the sale of its product trademarked Nembutal to any penal institution in the US.

The EC, mindful of the possibility that states may try to circumvent the new regulations, says that it has the power to add other drugs to the list at will. It is also going to carry out a full review next year to see whether the controls on drugs used by US death row prisons are fool-proof.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/dec/20/death-penalty-drugs-european-commission

I knew there was a shortage of drugs used to execute people, but did not realize the EU's role in this shortage. Nice use of trade to achieve human rights goals.