Death Penalty as Applied to the States: The View Through Legal Certainty as an Element of the Rule of Law

Abstract

Death penalty keeps being common and widespread punishment in certain parts of the world. Despite the worldwide trend aimed at abolition of death penalty, numerous scholars and practitioners keep arguing about the status of this punishment, as well as its pros and cons. However, the approach of death penalty applicable to states has not been in the mainstream research despite states having collapsed or ceased existence in multiple ways throughout all human history. The widespread application of the rule of law principle was one of the major causes of the abovementioned trend on limiting and abolishing death penalty worldwide. Numerous researchers have assessed rule of law impact on death penalty as attributed to humans. Nonetheless, research on death penalty as attributed to states remains novel. This paper aims to establish major points this research could be based upon by attempting to compare death penalty as attributed to humans’ features with those of death penalty attributed to the states. One of the most important major points is the definition of death penalty as applied to the states which this paper also makes an attempt to provide. Rule of law does provide assistance in that matter, namely legal certainty as one of major rule of law elements. The paper tries to assess both the death penalty as attributed to humans and death penalty as attributed to the states from legal certainty viewpoint through its elements: clarity and foreseeability of laws and regulations, consistency in application, due process, transparency, and accountability. The paper concludes with the idea that death penalty as attributed to the states does de facto exist as a concept and may be outlined within the scope of public international law and viewed upon through legal certainty as an essential element of the rule of law.