IB Global Politics Understanding Human Rights

Context: The death penalty remains one of the most contested sites of the universalism vs. cultural relativism debate in human rights. While international human rights bodies have progressively moved toward treating capital punishment as incompatible with the right to life, approximately 55 states retain and actively use the death penalty, with the United States, China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt among the most significant retentionist states. Cultural relativists argue that the death penalty reflects legitimate expressions of community values about justice, deterrence, and proportional