The Death Penalty in the OSCE Area–Background Paper 2021 resulting in the delay of two executions due to the unavailability of execution drugs.238 In the case of Montana, in March 2021, a bill was tabled to permit execution by, “an intravenous injection of a substance or substances in a lethal quantity sufficient to cause death.”239 In the same month, corrections officials in Arizona announced that the state could soon resume executions after it procured pentobarbital through a compounding pharmacy,240 from an unknown source, in line with the state’s secrecy policy.241 The federal execution protocol allows for execution by lethal injection, “or by any other manner prescribed by the law of the State in which the sentence was imposed or which has been designated by a court,” in accordance with the Federal Death Penalty Act, which includes death by electrocution or death by firing squad.242 Executions carried out at the federal level, criticised for lack of transparency and procedural irregularities, also raised controversy related to the procurement of pentobarbital required for applying the lethal injection. The government kept the supplier of its execution drugs, and of the laboratories that tested them, secret out of fear that the companies would not co-operate if subjected to public scrutiny. 243 238 Death Penalty Information Center, Legislators in South Carolina, Montana Seek to Change Execution Methods to Allow Executions to Resume, 1 March 2021. 239 Ibid. 240 According to DPIC, As lethal injection drugs have become less accessible due to a combination of shortages and measures implemented by pharmaceutical companies intended to stop the drugs’ use in executions, some Departments of Corrections have begun to use compounding pharmacies as a source of those drugs. Compounding pharmacies combine, mix, or alter drugs. The Food and Drug Administration does not approve the products of compounding pharmacies. Compounding pharmacies must be licensed by their state’s pharmacy board, but do not have to register with the FDA or inform the FDA what drugs they are making. 241 Death Penalty Information Center, Arizona Department of Corrections Says It Is Ready to Resume Executions, 8 March 2021. “Major pharmaceutical companies that produce pentobarbital and other execution drugs have expressed their opposition to the use of their products in executions and have implemented distribution restrictions to prevent prisons from purchasing the drugs. Arizona joined Texas and other states in purchasing pentobarbital from compounding pharmacies. The federal government also used compounded pentobarbital in the 13 executions it carried out in 2020 and 2021, but it is unclear who supplied the drug.” Death Penalty Information Center, Execution Lawsuits Settle in Arizona and California, as Prisoners Renew Lethal-Injection Protocol Challenge in Oklahoma, 6 August 2020.“Following a lawsuit after the botched execution of Joseph Wood in 2014 in Arizona, a settlement was reached on 26 June 2020, allowing witnesses to see and hear an execution in its entirety, while keeping the identity of its drug suppliers secret.” 242 Manner of Federal Executions, Proposed Rule by the Justice Department on 8 May 2020. 243 ProPublica, Inside Trump and Barr’s Last-Minute Killing Spree, 23 December 2020 and Death Penalty Information Center, ProPublica Investigation Reveals Irregularities in Federal Executions, 8 January 2021. 56