| Summary/Abstract |
This Article examines the somewhat paradoxical relationship between China’s unique innovation, the suspended death sentence (sihuan zhidu), and the aim of global abolition of capital punishment. Under China’s criminal law, a two-year reprieve may be imposed together with the death sentence if the court does not find immediate execution to be necessary, and, depending on the convict’s behavior during the reprieve, the death sentence may be commuted to life or fixed-term imprisonment. The suspended death sentence may serve as a model for remaining retentionist States to emulate in their movement towards abolition because it is a potentially powerful tool of partial abolition which allows the State to increasingly isolate the use of the death penalty to the most serious crimes and gradually reduce the number of executions. However, implementing the suspended death sentence, in its current form, in retentionist States may conversely legitimate the use of the death penalty for the worst criminals who are regarded as most deserving of such punishment, and impede progress towards abolition.
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