Buddhism is generally associated with non-violence. This is reflected in the first of the five precepts that all Buddhists are expected to acknowledge if not always adhered to: refrain from killing. The most famous verse in the canonical anthology of Buddhist verses, the Dhammapada, is perhaps “Hatred is never ceased by hatred. By non-hatred alone is hatred ceased. This is the eternal law.”
The essence of this non-violence principle is illustrated in the Aṅgulimāla Sutta, one of the most famous stories in the Buddhist Canon. Known to virtually all Buddhists, it is a story of how the Buddha converted, with his mere words, the eponymous brigand who was famous for his garland (māla) of his victims ’fingers (aṅguli) around his neck. Having been given opportunity to reform himself, Aṅgulimāla later became enlightened.
This episode is rightly considered to demonstrate the Buddha’s supreme compassion and wisdom, and is held in high regard as example of the belief in non-violence and self-reformation in Buddhism – even towards someone who once espouses violence.
This is not just theory, however. Philologist K. R. Norman has conclusively established that capital punishment was abolished by Emperor Asoka who ruled most of what is now known as India (Gombrich) and became the role model for Buddhist kings to emulate – with varying degrees of efforts and success.
Having said that, the death penalty has been historically practiced in all Buddhist societies. Most of the predominantly Buddhist nations still have capital punishment on the book. Only two, Cambodia and Bhutan, have abolished the death penalty.
From the human rights perspective, it’s clear that capital punishment is a serious human rights violation. According to Amnesty International,
The death penalty is the ultimate denial of human rights. It is the premeditated and cold-blooded killing of a human being by the state in the name of justice. It violates the right to life as proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment, what ever form it takes — electrocution, hanging, gassing, beheading, stoning, shooting or lethal injection. (Amnesty International).
Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) states in its first clause that “[E]very human being has the inherent right to life. This right shall be protected by law. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life.” (United Nations, 1966).
The last clause of Article 6 can also be interpreted an encouragement for states towards its abolition, as it states, “Nothing in this article shall be invoked to delay or to prevent the abolition of capital punishment by any State Party to the present Covenant.” (United Nations, 1966).
However, at the time of ICCPR’s inception [1947-1966], the abolition movement was in its infancy, and the death penalty had been abolished by only ten countries. As a result, ICCPR did not require states to abolish the death penalty.(International Bar Association, 2008).
Things have vastly changed since. At present, 97 countries have abolished capital punishment for all crimes, 8 countries reserve it for certain serious crimes only, 35 countries are abolitionist in practice, while only 58, including Thailand, are retentionist states. (Amnesty International). There is also a growing movement towards universal abolition in accordance with the international human rights principles which are considered the common denominator of human decency.
Given the fact that the Buddha said his teachings are for the benefits of all human beings, it would seem that Buddhist countries should be at the forefront of the abolitionist movement. Paradoxically, as we have already seen, the opposite is the case.
Unlike most other predominantly Buddhist countries, comparatively democratic Thailand is expected to follow international human rights standards. Yet, Thailand most recently put two prisoners to death by lethal injection in 2009 and has not shown any indications that these would be the last practice of state violence in the form of capital punishment. The Gallup International 2000 Millennium Survey Poll revealed that Thailand ranked as the third most death penalty-happy among the 59 countries surveyed, with 78.63% approval rate for capital punishment. (Unnever, 2010).
Not only that, Thailand also continues to ignore the international movement against the death penalty. In 2012, it abstained on the UN General Assembly resolution 67/176 on Moratorium on the Use of the Death Penalty. The Thai government voted against similar resolution62/149 in 2007 and resolution 63/168 in 2009 and abstained on resolution 65/206in 2011. (Chanruang, 2013).
This is in line with the own conduct of its own internal affairs where Thailand also buckles international pressure on the issue. On October 5, 2011, during the Universal Periodic Review at the United Nations Human Rights Council, the Thai government rejected all the fifteen recommendations in relation to the review or amendment of laws which allow capital punishment. No concrete explanations have been forthcoming, except the claim that it was awaiting the result of the feasibility study of abolition. (Chanruang, 2013).
As a public policy in a democracy, Thailand’s death penalty public policy must be in one way or another connected to the collective will of the people. As elected representatives, politicians and legislators are expected to represent the voices of those who voted for them. Indeed, public opinion is held to be one key factor that influences death penalty policy.
Vidmar &Ellsworth (1976) argued that, “To some extent public opinion has always played a part in modern controversy about the death penalty; both abolitionists and retentionists refer to it in ethical and philosophical writings, and legislators often defend their position on capital punishment by citing public opinions.”
To the author’s knowledge, no elected politicians have spoken in public against capital punishment. Interestingly, this issue is one of the very few that the ruling government and the opposition party seems to be in agreement.
Deputy Prime Minister Chalerm Yubamrung recently proposed that drug dealers should automatically be given death sentences because once in prison they would form drugs networks. (“Chalerm proposes death,” 2013). His position largely coincides with the opinion held by the opposition party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva as given in a TV interview. (Suthassana-chinda, 2012).
The arguments for capital punishments can generally be categorized into three categories of criminal justice philosophies.
1) Retribution(eye for an eye): Criminals should suffer for the harm they cause others.
2) Incapacitation: Criminals should be treated in a way that they can no longer become threats to society.
3) Deterrence: Criminals should be given punishment and be shown as such so that others will be deterred from doing the same.
On the other hand, those who oppose the death penalty generally prescribe to the restorative school of criminal justice philosophy which believes in the rehabilitation or reformation of offenders and their reconciliation with and reintegration into society. This is in line with the Buddha’s position – obviously shown in the way the Buddha treated the finger-garlanded Aṅgulimāla.
In the Gallup International 2000 Millennium Survey Poll, 58.89% of Thai respondents cited deterrence as reason for punishment of offenders, 19.96% believed in retribution, 11.66% cited public safety (incapacitation) and only 9.49%rehabilitation. (Unnever, 2010).
The result that the majority of Thais cited deterrence coincides with those of local polls. Ina recent local poll, 79.14% of Thai respondents agreed that the executions of drug dealers should be televised, and 46.98% thought that it would help reduce drug problems in the country. (Suan Dusit Poll, 2001).
Perception of increasing crime rate also affects popular support for the death penalty.(Unnever, 2010). Politicians become louder in support of capital punishment when crime rate increases, in order to portray themselves as ‘tough on crime’. Thailand’s disastrous “war on drugs” in2003 led to the killings of more than 2,000 people. In 2009, 73 of the 104death sentences handed down by court was to drug traffickers and dealers. (Kerdhorm)
But studies elsewhere have shown that evidence for the deterrence effects of the death penalty is, at best, tenuous (Donohue &Wolfers, 2006). In their literature review and analysis, Bailey & Peterson (1994) failed to find evidence of the death penalty’s deterrent effects on crime. Radelet & Borg (2000) summarized past researches showing that the death penalty provided no additional prevention of crime than long-term imprisonment. Radelet & Askers (1996) also gave expert accounts in agreement of this conclusion.
Similar studies have yet to be done in Thailand, where the general public and politicians seem contented to believe in the deterrent effects of the death penalty. Therefore, even though extrajudicial executions have stopped, the officiated killings by the state for drug offenses and other crimes will continue with a huge popular support.
Yet, despite such draconian measures, the country’s drug problems have not been solved (Kerdhorm) because these so-called solutions fail to address the root causes of the problem.
Thailand’s drug problems intimately involve economic gap between Thailand and the neighboring countries where most drugs come from. The continuing ethnic conflicts in Myanmar also fuel the production of narcotics made in order to finance the war between ethnic minorities and the Nay Pyi Daw government. This negligence of the root causes of the problem is in contrary to the core Buddhist principle of the Four Noble Truths which emphasize “uprooting” the very cause of suffering.
Another potent argument against death penalty is that it’s not severity, but the certainty and promptness of punishment which reduce crime. This has been one of the Enlightenment thinker Cesare Beccaria’s critical arguments against inhuman punishments which led to the abolition of capital punishment in most of Western Europe in the 19thcentury (Beccaria, 1819).
On the contrary, Thailand’s war on drugs only punished drug peddlers on the street, and failed to bring those behind them to justice. Equality before the law is the key to successful solution. In lieu of it, more severe measures are just a way to ‘act tough’ by politicians, yet a useless one.
Beccaria also warned against handing the state such power to kill: "The punishment of death is pernicious to society, from the example of barbarity it affords… Is it not absurd, that the laws, which detest and punish homicide, should, in order to prevent murder, publicly commit murder themselves?" (Beccaria, 1819).
While scholars based or published in the West are largely unanimous that the death penalty is incompatible with Buddhism (Alarid, 2001; Collins, 1998; Harvey, 2000; Horigan,1996; Loy, 2000; Pandita, 2012;), most Thai scholars seem to disagree. In his lecture Comfort or Challenge? Professor Richard Gombrich related his experience which sharply illustrates this gulf.
"I was at a huge international Wesak [Commemoration of the day of the Buddha’s enlightenment]conference here in Bangkok, when at a panel session a Norwegian proposed from the floor that the death penalty was incompatible with Buddhist principles and should be abolished. I was shocked by the panel’s glib response: that this was a difficult issue to resolve, because many people in Thailand favour the death penalty… the Norwegian spoke against the death penalty in front of Sangha [monks] members from every Theravada country, and not one of them spoke up to support him. So much for the religion of universal compassion.” (Gombrich, 2010).
From the evidence that the author has gathered, it appears that karma is the primary reason for this wide gulf of opinions between scholars who are based or published in the West on the one hand and those in Thailand on the other.
Having given the last rites to prisoners before their executions over the past decades, Phra Khru Sri Nonthawat, abbot of Wat Bang Phraek Tai temple, reasoned, “Thailand is a Buddhist country so people are always questioning why executions are allowed here. Yes, killing is sinful but Buddhism teaches us to look at the intention behind the act. The intention here is to protect the country, so it is permitted.” ("The Real Bangkok," 2004, 15:37-16:25).
Similar rationalization is echoed by Somparn Promtha. A well-respected Buddhist ethics scholar in Thailand, Somparn was one of the three scholars commissioned by the Office of the National Research Council in 2003 to study the permissibility of capital punishment under the project called “Death Penalty: Human Life and Social Values and Evaluation.” While the other two scholars studied capital punishment from the political science and legal/criminological perspectives, Somparn look at the issue from Buddhist perspective. His book Morana-yuttitham [Justice by death] (2011) comes directly from that study.
In this work, Somparn came to the conclusion that punishment is legitimate because it lessens “society’s suffering”. To back up his argument, Somparn also examined theories of justice from Plato, Aquinas, and Catholicism to Kant, Utilitarianism and Sartre. This, however, betrayed Somparn’s struggle to find legitimation from the Buddhist texts themselves to justify his foregone conclusion – already stated in his introduction.
Somparn, however, is not the only Buddhist scholar who supports the necessity of capital punishment in Thai society. The revered Thai monk and towering Buddhist intellectual figure of the twentieth century, venerable Buddhadasa Bhikkhu, implicitly gave a nod to death penalty by saying that judges who hand down such a sentence and executioners who execute it commit no sin in doing so if they espouse no ill will against the prisoners. (Buddhadasa, 1999). He repeated the same opinion in his 1981 birthday sermon. (“Killings which incur”). The “ill will” again refers to volition as the Buddhist definition of karma – which is, therefore, a point of divergent between Western and Thai scholars.
The arguments surrounding the death penalty in Thailand have almost always been framed in term of human rights or utilitarian arguments. The debate organized by the National Human Rights Commission of Thailand is representative of these arguments (iLaw, 2012).
But even if capital punishment is in accordance with human rights principles – which it is not – and shown to be effective in deterrence – a shaky claim – it still needs to be independently assessed from moral perspective, because at the end of the day each person has to reconcile the death penalty with their moral principles.
Although most Thais are still under the misunderstanding that capital punishment helps reduce crime, once the myth is dispelled some will grasp on to the next most popular justification for the death penalty: retribution. Therefore, arguing against the death penalty from a moral angle will pre-empt this and may even change the opinions of some Thais, even if they believe in its deterrent effects.
As already shown, popular support has very strong influence on death penalty in Thailand, and the public opinion would have to change significantly before capital punishment can be abolished in the country.
However, this popular support is based on beliefs – in particular, karma – which are contrary to the Buddhist principles, making the death penalty fundamentally un-Buddhist. Therefore, that capital punishment has no justification in Buddhism or international human rights law, and should be abolished immediately.
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