1
The Status of the Death Penalty
in the OSCE Area
For the purpose of this paper, each participating State has been classified as abolitionist,
partly abolitionist, de facto abolitionist, or retentionist according to the status of the
death penalty in the relevant state’s law and practice.
Abolitionist: The death penalty has been abolished for all crimes.
Forty-nine OSCE participating States are abolitionist:
• Albania • Liechtenstein
• Lithuania
• Andorra
• Luxembourg
• Armenia
• Malta
• Austria
• Moldova
• Azerbaijan
• Monaco
• Belgium
• Montenegro
• Bosnia and Herzegovina
• The Netherlands
• Bulgaria
• Canada • Norway
• Poland
• Croatia
• Cyprus • Portugal
• Romania
• The Czech Republic
• Denmark • San Marino
• Serbia
• Estonia
• Finland • The Slovak Republic
• Slovenia
• France
• Georgia • Spain
• Sweden
• Germany
• Greece • Switzerland
• Turkey
• The Holy See
• Hungary • Turkmenistan
• Ukraine
• Iceland
• Ireland • The United Kingdom
• The former Yugoslav Republic
• Italy
of Macedonia
• Kyrgyzstan