Over the years I have attended umpteen debates on the abolition of capital punishment.

BBC: Yorkshire Ripper victim's son rejects hanging

Connecticut's move continues a national trend toward the abolition of capital punishment.

CNN: Connecticut lawmakers vote to repeal death penalty

Turkey's EU ambitions long pre-date the collapse of communism, and the country has recently made strenuous efforts to meet the EU's membership criteria including the abolition of capital punishment.

ECONOMIST: Growing and slowing | The

The country once had been at the forefront in the region's efforts to abolish in law and practice the death penalty, with a moratorium on the death penalty for 27 years and the abolition of capital punishment for drug offenses in April 2011, Heyns said.

CNN: U.N. slams 'stream of executions' in Gambia

So too was the bill which ended capital punishment in Britain - the Murder (Abolition of the Death Penalty) Act 1965.

BBC: UK Politics