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On day one, the second Trump administration issued an executive order calling for “Restoring the death penalty and protecting public safety.” I chair the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty’s working group for its annual World Day Against the Death Penalty, marked every October 10th, and it’s fitting that this order came out just as we were gearing up to plan our second year focusing on the theme of “The Death Penalty Protects No One.”

Contrary to the executive order’s bald-faced assertions, the death penalty neither has a unique deterrent effect on crime nor supports victims of violent crime.

An August 2025 report by the UN Secretary-General confirmed this point, concluding that “[t]here is no conclusive evidence to support the theory that the death penalty deters crime more effectively than any other punishment.”

Facts and evidence, however, have never deterred the Trump administration. The January 20 executive order lashes out at “politicians and judges” for imposing constraints on the death penalty and directs the Attorney General to “seek the overruling of” Supreme Court precedents limiting the use of the death penalty, under the pretext of “prioritiz[ing] public safety.” The Fallacy Driving the Death Penalty’s Revival in the USA State lawmakers swiftly took note. Idaho and Oklahoma passed laws authorizing the death penalty for non-lethal sexual assault of a child, expressly defying a 2008 Supreme Court precedent prohibiting the death penalty for crimes in which the victim did not die and the offender did not intend to kill. Florida adopted a mandatory death penalty for “unauthorized aliens,” directly contravening a Supreme Court precedent dating back to 1976 prohibiting mandatory death penalty statutes.

As The Advocates sees in working with Coalition partners around the world, politicians often invoke the death penalty as a simplistic response to complex issues relating to public safety and criminal behavior. Effective solutions include addressing the root causes of crime and dedicating resources and training to ensure that authorities can apprehend offenders and gather sufficient evidence to secure convictions.

Rather than building respect for the rule of law, however, the Trump administration undermines it by thumbing its nose at long established Supreme Court precedents.

Standing in solidarity with Coalition members in other “backsliding” countries, The Advocates continues to bring international attention to the United States’ death penalty practices. In 2024, the United States ranked seventh globally for executions, keeping company with countries like China, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, and Yemen, and it may move up in the ranks, with 2025 executions on pace to increase by over 35%. Yet as a record-breaking 130 countries voted in favor of the UN General Assembly resolution calling for global a moratorium on the death penalty in December 2024, we know the United States is becoming increasingly isolated in its embrace of capital punishment. The Trump administration’s empty rhetoric is fooling no one.