David Garland delivers keynote speech at Oslo symposium on the death penalty

David Garland was a keynote speaker at the Second Oslo International Symposium on Capital Punishment earlier this month. Funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the symposium examined the death penalty in the United States, Japan, and countries with majority Muslim populations.

In his lecture, titled “Why the Death Penalty is Disappearing,” Garland noted, “The death penalty once formed an elementary particle of governmental power in every nation state. Today the practice is widely regarded as a shameful violation of human rights and is prohibited throughout most of the western world.”

The lecture drew upon Garland’s widely acclaimed 2010 book, Peculiar Institution: America’s Death Penalty in an Age of Abolition.

Posted on December 14, 2012