East Asia Forum
Date: 1 November 2017
By: Margaret K Lewis, Seton Hall University

In May 2014, a man stabbed four people to death and injured dozens on a Taipei train. He was executed on 10 May 2016 — 10 days before President Tsai Ing-wen assumed office. The pace of executions in Taiwan has waxed and waned over recent decades — after a nearly five-year pause in executions, 33 people were executed between 2010 and 2016. Today, the death penalty remains legal, popular and contentious.

Treason, piracy and serious drug offences are among the crimes for which courts may impose a death sentence, although the overwhelming majority of executions in the last decade have been for murder. Retention of the death penalty is permitted but discouraged under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which Taiwan adopted as domestic law in 2009.    [FULL  STORY]