Students of capital punishment need to study Asia, the site of at least 85 percent
and as many as 95 percent of the world's executions. This article explores the
varieties of Asian capital punishment in two complementary ways. Cross-sectionally,
the impression of uniformity that comes from classifying 95 percent of the
population of Asia as living in executing states breaks down when closer attention
is paid to the character of capital punishment policy within retentionist nations.
Temporally, the general trajectory of capital punishment in the Asian region seems
downward (though generalizations about patterns in this part of the world are
undermined by significant data problems). Asia is also a useful territory for
testing the generality of theories of capital punishment based on European
experience. Looking forward, Japan and South Korea, two developed nations in Asia
that still retain the death penalty, may indicate what other Asian nations are
likely to do as they develop. Ultimately, Asia either will become a major staging
area for world-wide abolition or the campaign against capital punishment will fail
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