Papua New Guinea Becomes The First Nation Of 2022 To Abolish The Death Penalty

     Today is a historic day in the fight to abolish the death penalty around the globe with the announcement that Papua New Guinea has become the first nation of 2022 to abolish the death penalty. The last execution in Papua New Guinea, a beautiful peninsular nation located between Australia and Indonesia, was performed by hanging in 1957. It was formally abolished in 1970, before the nation gained independence in 1975. However, in 1991, the death penalty was reestablished for murder. Not a single death sentence was handed out, with judges not having dealt with death penalty cases before.

     Oceania, a region that comprises Australia, New Zealand, and the South Pacific island nations, has relatively low crime rates, which means sentences for death have been very rarely handed out and only in cases of particularly egregious murder or treason. The Solomon Islands and Tuvalu abolished the practice in 1978, Kiribati in 1979, Vanuatu in 1980, Australia in 1985, Micronesia and the Marshall Islands in 1986, New Zealand in 1989, Palau in 1994, Samoa in 2004, Fiji in 2015, Nauru in 2016, and now Papua New Guinea in 2022. 

     While American Samoa is geographically part of Oceania, it is politically a part of the United States, and, therefore, does not count when considering retentionist and abolitionist places in the region. This leaves Tonga as the only country on the continent where capital punishment is still a legal penalty. The nation has not executed any people in exactly 40 years; since 1982, nobody has sat on death row in Tonga. However, the abolition of the death penalty in Tonga is a pertinent goal because it would make Oceania the first continent on Earth (with the obvious exception of Antarctica) to be completely free of the death penalty. Belarus is the only retentionist country in Europe and the United States is the only country in the Americas that has executed people in the past 15 years, but Oceania would be the first continent on Earth to legally abolish capital punishment. Let's make it happen!