The OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) launched its new report on the death penalty in the OSCE area in Warsaw on 6 October 2026. The publication features an introductory essay by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Bialiatski, who also contributed to the launch event.
Capital punishment is irreversible, making safeguards against coerced confessions, unreliable evidence and unfair trials critical. The new report reviews changes in the use of the death penalty across the OSCE region and examines how progress towards abolition can be protected.
"The death penalty is ineffective as a deterrent, unjust in its application, irreversible in its consequences and incompatible with human dignity," Bialiatski writes in his introductory essay.
The Death Penalty in the OSCE Area: Background Paper 2026 covers the period from 1 April 2022 to 31 December 2025. It, examines developments in participating States and relevant international human rights standards since the publication of the latest edition in 2022.
At the launch event, the discussion explored safeguards from the earliest stages of detention, oversight and accountability. Practitioners from the United Kingdom's Metropolitan Police Service shared experiences of the PEACE model of investigative interviewing, focusing on gathering information and evidence without coercion.
The launch was organized by ODIHR and the Centre for Development and Justice International as a side event at the 2026 Warsaw Human Dimension Conference .
