Lebanon abolishes the death penalty after 22 years without an execution

Introduction

On 11 August, the Parliament of Lebanon adopted new legislation abolishing the death penalty from the country's laws, after 22 years without executions. Subject to the formality of Presidential signature, Lebanon becomes the 129th country worldwide to end the punishment, and the second among the 22 members of the League of Arab States (with Djibouti) to secure full abolition. This laudable development, aligning Lebanon with a growing international consensus against capital punishment, arises at a time of multiple crises for the country, with war and occupation leading to widespread internal displacement and acute humanitarian need, against the backdrop of a major economic collapse. This blog post reflects on the success of the Lebanese abolition campaign within that context; the status of the death penalty over the two decades since the last executions; and the history of the abolitionist movement which laid the longer-term foundations for this success. 

Legislating for abolition in a time of crisis 

Prior to abolition, the death penalty was retained under 41 different provisions of Lebanese law. Offences for which the punishment could be imposed included treason, espionage, terrorism and intentional homicide, with executions carried out by hanging or firing squad. Despite the lack of executions since 2004, death sentences were still regularly handed down: two people were sentenced to death during 2023, two during 2024 and one during 2025. Death sentences could be imposed by civilian courts, military courts or the Judicial Council (a special criminal court trying offences against state security, with no right to appeal). The carrying out of executions required approval from the Minister of Justice, the Prime Minister and the President. According to data from the Ministry of Justice, there were 85 individuals under sentence of death at the end of 2025.

The legislative process for abolition was initiated by the Lebanese Association for Civil Rights (LACR), which proposed a Bill (160/2025) submitted before Parliament in October 2025, signed by a cross-Parliamentary group of seven MPs. The effect of the legislation is to replace the death sentence with a penalty of life imprisonment (with 'hard labour', although it is unclear whether this element will be enforced). In November 2025, the Bill received government approval from the Council of Ministers; it was subsequently reviewed by various Parliamentary committees, before being passed by the National Assembly. The text of the Bill included a number of rationales for abolition: that the death penalty is against human dignity and the sanctity of life; the lack of evidence for any deterrent effect of capital punishment; alignment with international norms and human rights principles; and the irreversibility of error, because the risk of wrongful conviction can never be avoided. 

This milestone for the Lebanese criminal justice system arises at a time of myriad domestic challenges. Since October 2023, Israeli forces have conducted intense bombardments in their campaign against the Hezbollah militant group, resulting in thousands of civilian deaths, including during periods of nominal ceasefire. Together with the Israeli military occupation of large areas of the south of the country and issuing of evacuation orders, this has resulted in the displacement of around one million people. Even prior to this, the country had already experienced a stark economic collapse since 2019, with a near 40% reduction in GDP, in addition to recovering from the effects of the explosion at Beirut port in August 2020. Against this background, Minister of Justice Adel Nassar specifically highlighted the importance of the abolition legislation as a demonstration of Lebanon’s ability to commit to international human rights standards. 

Considered within this immediate context, Lebanon’s abolition also stands in contrast to the recent death penalty politics of neighbouring Israel. In March, the Knesset adopted new legislation providing for the death penalty for those convicted of terrorism-related offences, framed in explicitly discriminatory terms against Palestinian defendants. In May, it passed further legislation providing for capital punishment through the forthcoming special tribunal for the October 7 attacks. These developments have been accompanied by the enthusiastic embrace of death penalty symbolism from some officials, with National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir toasting with champagne in the Knesset chamber after the passing of the March legislation, and later pictured celebrating his birthday with a cake decorated with a noose. While the March legislation is subject to a pending constitutional challenge, and has received international condemnation, this trajectory nonetheless signals the potential for a break from Israel’s longstanding practice of not carrying out judicial executions, the last being that of Adolf Eichmann in 1962. 

Lebanon’s experience as an ‘abolitionist de facto’ state

Given its own long-term practice of not carrying out executions, Lebanon was until its legal abolition classified as an abolitionist de facto (ADF) state: those that retain the death penalty in law, but which have not carried out an execution for 10 years or more. There are 43 states worldwide that fall into this category, and, as in Lebanon’s case, many continue to impose new death sentences despite the lack of executions. Unlike retentionist states which still actively carry out executions, ADF states receive limited international attention, meaning that their death penalty situation is typically under-researched. In September 2025, the Death Penalty Research Unit (DPRU) and the Death Penalty Project (DPP) published a new research report on the concept of ADF status and the experiences of ADF states, titled Between Retention and Abolition: Making Sense of a Death Penalty Without Executions, aimed at elucidating this issue.

Lebanon’s abolition provides an example of an ADF state moving from suspension of executions to full abolition, rather than remaining in stasis as many do, or – in rare cases – resuming executions. Its last executions, in January 2004, were carried out on three men convicted of murder, following a five-year break in executions since 1998. These executions prompted a backlash from civil society groups and the European Union, which contributed to the maintenance of an unofficial moratorium from that point. Successive Ministers of Justice expressed the position that they would refuse to sign execution warrants. Within this period of moratorium, further steps were also taken in the direction of abolition. In 2011, legislation was adopted to formalise the status of death-sentenced prisoners, including permitting sentence reduction. More recently, at the international level, Lebanon shifted to supporting the UN resolution for a worldwide moratorium on the death penalty, voting in favour in 2020, 2022 and 2024, having previously abstained since the first vote in 2007.

Despite the suspension of executions, however, prisoners were still held on death row in Lebanon. In fact, our report found that the majority (70%) of ADF states hold prisoners on death row, maintaining many facets of the capital punishment system despite attracting an ‘abolitionist’ label. This means that those sentenced to death can still suffer the harmful psychological effects of ‘death row phenomenon’, living in limbo with uncertainty about whether executions may be resumed at any point. In Lebanon, conditions of detention are reported to be extremely poor, including at Roumieh prison on the outskirts of Beirut, where the majority of death-sentenced prisoners were held. Responding to a 2018 study, one psychologist working with death-sentenced prisoners in Lebanese prisons stated:  

“We can see the uncertainty that those who are condemned to death are living under. We don’t apply the death penalty but we don’t cancel it either. Are we going to wake them up one day and tell them that they will be executed? It is the most horrible thing to live through. It leads to anxiety, depression and stress that is sometimes uncontrollable. They are alive, but without living.”

Similar findings on the psychological impacts of life on death row under the existential uncertainty of ADF status have been reported from other jurisdictions. Several prisoners interviewed for the 2018 Lebanese study reported having attempted suicide due to their circumstances. The study also cited the example of two prisoners whose executions were scheduled in 2000, only to be cancelled one hour before the planned time. The suffering experienced by those held on death row in ADF states highlights the fact that while the suspension of executions is a valuable step, only full abolition can entirely bring an end to the harmful impacts of death penalty laws.

Abolition as the outcome of a long-term collaborative process

Where abolition of the death penalty is achieved, it usually represents the outcome of a long-term collaborative effort from actors including civil society groups, legislators, lawyers and other advocates, over the course of many years or decades. In Lebanon, the success of the abolition campaign builds on work which began in the 1980s. When the LACR presented its legislative proposal for abolition in October 2025, it named the Bill the ‘Walid Slaibi Law’, after the late co-founder of Lebanon’s abolitionist movement. In 1983, Dr Walid Slaibi initiated the movement together with Dr Ougarit Younan, as part of their work through the Movement for Human Rights, and in 1997 established the ‘National Campaign Against the Death Penalty in Lebanon’ after a period of executions in the mid-1990s. In 2002, the campaign was one of the organisations which founded the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty, the global network for abolitionist campaigns. 

The Lebanese movement can be seen to have incorporated many of the methods deployed by successful abolition movements elsewhere. Opinion research can constitute a crucial tool in evaluating the potential for change: research among Lebanese Parliamentarians in 2001 found that 74% were in favour of either full or gradual abolition; a similar survey in 2009/10 found that 68% held these views. Opinion research was also used in preparing the ground for the removal in 2001 of the mandatory death penalty for murder, which was repealed with overwhelming support from MPs. Deliberate strategic engagement with policymakers was also evident in the work of abolitionist civil society organisations, including LACR and ECPM, including targeting the development of relationships with Parliamentarians. Their efforts to this end included the hosting of a national conference against the death penalty in 2014, and of a national conference on criminal justice issues, including the death penalty, in 2023. 

Successful legislative endeavours towards abolition can also build on previous attempts at legal change. The 2026 Bill in Lebanon was only the latest in a series of such proposals. For example, in 2004 a draft law was proposed by Walid Slaibi; in 2008 a Bill was put before the Council of Ministers by then Minister of Justice Ibrahim Najjar, and in 2012 another Bill was put forward by Elie Keyrouz MP. While each of these proposals encountered obstacles at the time, they nonetheless laid the foundations for the future – a heartening implication for abolitionists facing barriers to abolition elsewhere. The movement for abolition also received support from wider international abolitionist advocates and networks. Renowned French abolitionist Robert Badinter spoke at a conference hosted by the Beirut Bar, while in recent years, Lebanese delegations have participated in regional abolitionist conferences and in the World Congress Against the Death Penalty. 

Conclusions

Lebanon’s experience can provide potential insights for other jurisdictions which retain death penalty laws. First, whenever policymakers contemplate calls for abolition, they do so while considering numerous competing policy issues, yet Lebanon’s commitment to achieving abolition during a time of national crisis demonstrates that this is entirely possible. Second, under ADF status, taking continued steps in the direction of abolition can help to avoid the risk of slipping into stasis. Until death penalty laws are fully removed, the possibility of the resumption of executions always remains, and there were moments during Lebanon’s 22-year moratorium that calls for executions became very prominent. Third, abolition is generally a multi-year or multi-decade endeavour, which can be informed by methods that have proven beneficial elsewhere, and one that is subject to compounding effects, so that even where a strategy may not be successful in the short term, it can still lay the foundations for an abolitionist future.

Daniel Cullen is Project Manager in the Death Penalty Research Unit (DPRU), University of Oxford, where he is lead researcher on the project 'A death penalty without executions: Engaging with international policymakers towards abolition in abolitionist de facto states'. He holds an LLM in Law from Birkbeck, University of London, and is currently completing the Bar training course at the Inns of Court College of Advocacy (ICCA). 

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons, licensed under Creative Commons BY 3.0.