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This paper discusses how and to what extent the international norm concerning the prohibition of the death penalty plays a role in East Asian democracies. In stark contrast to the worldwide abolitionist trend, the death penalty remains most entrenched in Asia, where more than 90 percent of all known executions take place. Why does the norm against the death penalty, which is apparently so important for most parts of the world, seem to have no impact on East Asia? How do domestic factors ? political leadership, public opinion, and institutional structures ? contribute to the rejection of the universally promoted human rights norm? With regard to the three major democracies in East Asia at different stages of the anti-death penalty movement (South Korea, most active in the abolitionist movement; Taiwan in the middle; and Japan least active), it investigates what accounts for the current varying impact of the norm in the same region. Analyzing how public and elite opinion interact with each other on capital punishment and what roles domestic institutional structures play, this paper aims to assess norm diffusion and to measure the norm?s capabilities and limitations for helping to shape new death penalty policy in this region. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]