The Use of the Death Penalty for Drug Trafficking in the United States, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand: A Comparative Legal Analysis

This article assesses the use of capital punishment for drug trafficking and related crimes from a comparative perspective. Domestic narcotics legislation, as well as important drug trafficking cases in four Southeast Asian nations (Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand) are examined in-depth and compared to the United States, which plays an important role in eradicating global drug-related problems. This article contends that the use of capital punishment is disproportionate to the gravity of drug-related offenses and that international drug control and enforcement treaties never suggested using such sanctions to deter crime. Fortunately, four Southeast Asian countries in this study, including Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand, currently realize this disproportionality and have become reluctant to carry out executions for drug trafficking; even though they continue to sentence a large number of drug-related offenders to death annually, they do not actually carry out these executions. Future research related to this topic is also recommended in this article.