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40 Hitotsubashi J.L. & Pol. 1 (2012)

handle is hein.journals/hbijllw40 and id is 1 raw text is: Hitotsubashi Journal of Law and Politics 40 (2012), pp.1-14. © Hitotsubashi University THE DEATH PENALTY AND SOCIETY IN EAST ASIA -HOW TO UNDERSTAND AND COMPARE THE DEATH PENALTY IN CHINA, JAPAN AND SOUTH KOREA-* WANG YUNHAI I. Same East Asia, Different Tendency China usually practices the most death sentences and conducts the most executions in the world today. Some people estimate that the average number of executions is about one thousand every year, but others indicate there seem to be more executions, even 8 thousands or more'. However, even such China has changed its traditional death penalty policy to a new one called as Firstly retain death penalty, secondly limit it and finally abolish it, and has shown some important improvements in its death penalty system. Such improvements include reducing the capital offences in its criminal law from 68 to 55; making the standard of death sentences stricter; using more the Death Penalty with a Two Years suspended execution rather than the Death Penalty with a Immediate Execution (about 99% of the offenders sentenced to the Death Penalty with a Two Years suspended execution would be reduced to a unfixed-term or fixed- term imprisonment finally); and building up a Chinese Super Due Process for Death Penalty Cases that limits both of the death sentences and executions2 Japan had been very cautious to the death penalty and kept the death sentences and executions very rare, but recently turned to a temporary increase both in its death sentences and executions. For example, the numbers of confirmed death sentence in Japan from 2000 to 2009 changed as follows: 6(2000), 5(2001), 3 (2002), 2(2003), 14(2004), 11(2005), 21(2006), 23 (2007), 10(2008), 17(2009). South Korea traditionally implemented many death sentences and executions, but has been in a moratorium since December 1997. II. A New Method: Analysis of Social Character Why are there so many differences among China, Japan and South Korea in the death * This article is one part of the result of THE DEATH PENALTY STUDY IN CHINA (Basic Study c, conducted by the author from 2009 to 2011) funded by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. * * Doctor of Law. Professor of Criminal Law, Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo, Japan. E-mail: Yunhai.WANG @r.hit-u.ac.jp David T. Johnson & Franklin E. Zimring, The Next Frontier: National Development, political Change, and the Death penalty in Asia, Oxford University Press, 2009, p.225. 2 Wang Yunhai, The Death Penalty and Society in Contemporary China, Punishment & Society: The International Journal of Penology, (U. S. A), Volume 10 Number 2, April 2008, p.146.

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