Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction / Roger Hood -- The United Nations and abolition of the death penalty / William A. Schabas -- The evolving human rights discourse of the Council of Europe : renouncing the sovereign right of the death penalty / Jon Yorke -- Taking the death penalty debate further: the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights / Lilian Chenwi -- Challenging the death penalty in the Caribbean: litigation at the privy council / Quincy Whitaker -- Constraining America's death penalty : the Eighth Amendment and excessive punishment / Julian Killingley -- Walking the Eighth Amendment tightrope : "time served" in the United States Supreme Court / Jane Marriott -- A crisis of confidence : Americans' doubts about the death penalty / Richard C. Dieter -- The death penalty in China : towards the rule of law / Nicola Macbean -- The abolitionist movement in death penalty-friendly Asia : the cases of South Korea and Taiwan / Sangmin Bae -- Capital punishment : a review and critique of abolition strategies / Peter Hodgkinson, Seema Kandelia and Lina Gyllensten -- A fate worse than death? the problems with life imprisonment as an alternative to the death penalty / Rachael Stokes.