Capital punishment in the United Kingdom was used from the creation of the state in 1707 until the practice was abolished in the 20th century. The last executions in the United Kingdom, by hanging, took place in 1964, prior to capital punishment being abolished for murder (in 1965 in Great Britain and in 1973 in Northern Ireland). Although not applied since, the death penalty was abolished in all circumstances in 1998. In 2004 the 13th Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights became binding on the United Kingdom, prohibiting the restoration of the death penalty for as long as the UK is a party to the Convention.
Read more about Capital Punishment In The United Kingdom: Background, Reform, Public Support For Reintroduction of Capital Punishment, Notable Executions in The United Kingdom
Famous quotes containing the words capital punishment, capital, punishment, united and/or kingdom:
“We make needless ado about capital punishment,—taking lives, when there is no life to take.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Woman—with a capital letter—should by now have ceased to be a specialty. There should be no more need of “movements” on her behalf, and agitations for her advancement and development ... than for the abolition of negro slavery in the United States.”
—Marion Harland (1830–1922)
“No punishment has ever possessed enough power of deterrence to prevent the commission of crimes. On the contrary, whatever the punishment, once a specific crime has appeared for the first time, its reappearance is more likely than its initial emergence could ever have been.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)
“The United States must be neutral in fact as well as in name.... We must be impartial in thought as well as in action ... a nation that neither sits in judgment upon others nor is disturbed in her own counsels and which keeps herself fit and free to do what is honest and disinterested and truly serviceable for the peace of the world.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)
“This is the Key of the Kingdom:
In that Kingdom is a city;”
—Unknown. This Is the Key (l. 1–2)