AHC: All major nations agree to punish terrorists with death penalty

Frank Hart

Frank Hart

With a PoD no earlier than the Lockerbie Bombing in 1988, create a scenario in which all people who commit terrorism after any certain date receive a mandatory death sentence in all of Eurasia, Canada, the USA, Mexico, Cuba, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Australia, New Zealand, Egypt, Algeria, South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, Libya, Tunisia, and Morocco.

Bonus points if either
1, the Council of Europe is disbanded due to member states leaving (the Council of Europe bans the death penalty);
2, all countries, internationally recognized or not, have a mandatory death sentence on terrorism as a crime; or
3, the standard methods of terrorist execution in at least five countries are worthy of a Vlad Tepes.
 
Maeglin

Maeglin

Not possible with a post-1988 POD. By this point, you're seeing the theoretical death penalty abolished for treason - the idea of bringing back a death penalty that would be actually practised? No.
 

Happy Nihilist

Pretty sure you couldn't give islamist terrorism a better gift than guaranteed martyrdom. ISIS literally won't take credit for attackers who survived.
 

bernardz

Happy Nihilist said:
Pretty sure you couldn't give islamist terrorism a better gift than guaranteed martyrdom. ISIS literally won't take credit for attackers who survived.
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Not only Islamic terrorist, Brenton Tarrant, the guy who shot up two Christchurch mosques also stated that he was quite prepared to die in the attack. What also does is open the government that did it to retaliation, ISIS could, for example, grab a few people from that government and execute them as the IRA did to the British.
 

baldipaul

Restoration of death penalty is part of Inkatha’s manifesto for the up coming South African elections. It won’t happen though.
 

fastmongrel

So people who want martyrdom are going to be killed. WOW what a deterrent Al Quada and ISIS will be literally destroyed within days as its Nihillistic fuck nut devotees decide to kill themselves another way.
 

overoceans

Pelranius said:
Does the treaty define what terrorism is?
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And no legally valid definition could be specific enough to exclude the terrorists that everyone in a given country considers to have a just cause. You're gonna have pro-life politicians from the Bible Belt saying it shouldn't include clinic bombers, Ulster Unionisits saying Orangemen should be exempt, and on and on ad infinitum.

And no, I'm not saying all those politicians would really believe those terrorists are okay. Just that, when you want to pander to the crazies but you can't come right out and say "I think it's okay to kill people on behalf of certain causes", pleading for softer punishment makes for a nice dog whistle.
 
oshron

oshron

if this were enacted, then i'd hope it would be accompanied by an extremely thorough trial--hopefully by the ICC--to determine beyond any reasonable doubt that a given act is terrorism rather than some level of dissidence that a given faction or regime claims is terrorism
 

Colonel Zoidberg

I notice Russia isn’t on the list, and my first thought is that even Russia doesn’t have the death penalty anymore. And if 1988 is the earliest POD, the USSR - which did have the death penalty - would have to stick around (even the Tsar didn’t have it - the Russian Federation having it seems unlikely.)

Given that most of the Western world considers the death penalty unacceptable, you’re asking a lot of countries to be bigger assholes than Russia. If Russia becomes kinder and gentler, the likelihood of the death penalty coming back is a long shot; if they’re run by an asshole, you would need ALL the ASBs and a few that don’t exist to get most of those countries to willingly look worse than Russia.
 

Lalli

I can't see there can be any international treaty which would order terrorism being punishable by death. By 1980's many Western nations have already abandoned death penalty totally and are quiet much against that. And how define terrorism and what kind of terrorist acts could bring death?

And even if such things would be accepted this would be gift of Heaven to every terrorist organisations and lone wolves. Not only for Islamists but others too. Norweigian terrorist Breivik even wished death penalty and was quiet dissapointed that he wasn't executed. Any reasonable doesn't want make terrorist martyr. Being alive is pretty much worst punishment for terrorist when he can't die for his views.
 

Theoretical_TJ

I think the closest argument would be to declare terrorists, very strictly defined, under the same language as pirates.

Even to this you really need a much more unstable world with far higher stakes (like lots of NBC terrorist incidents) and more importantly, no good alternatives.

Something like Devil’s island or an undersea prison would be alternative solutions.
 

The Tai-Pan

Theoretical_TJ said:
I think the closest argument would be to declare terrorists, very strictly defined, under the same language as pirates.

Even to this you really need a much more unstable world with far higher stakes (like lots of NBC terrorist incidents) and more importantly, no good alternatives.

Something like Devil’s island or an undersea prison would be alternative solutions.
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?? Undersea prison?
 

Theoretical_TJ

Yes, basically to truly put the worst terrorists away without killing them. Again, you’d need a much more unstable world where the “next frontier” in prisons becomes necessary.

For example, if you start getting regular interplanetary or even intergalactic travel, but under conditions and danger approximating the high seas in the 1600s, then summary capital punishment for piracy almost becomes a necessity until civilization builds sufficient outposts.
 

David T

Theoretical_TJ said:
I think the closest argument would be to declare terrorists, very strictly defined, under the same language as pirates.
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Plenty of countries don't have the death penalty for pirates, and even countries retaining the death penalty rarely have a mandatory death penalty for anything.

Even in the US, 18 U.S. Code § 1651. Piracy under law of nations provides that "Whoever, on the high seas, commits the crime of piracy as defined by the law of nations, and is afterwards brought into or found in the United States, shall be imprisoned for life." https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1651

The idea that all major countries, including those which don't have the death penalty for anything, will agree to a mandatory death penalty for anyone implicated in any degree (and regardless of any mitigating circumstances) in any terrorist act (whether the act kills a thousand people or none at all--after all, "acts dangerous to human life" https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2331 do not necessarily result in any actual fatalities) is simply not plausible.
 

Orcbuster

Lol no. Death penalty as a concept was largely dead in all major w-eu countries at that point, without them such a deal would be dead in the water before it even started.

And that dsoesn't even take into consideration that the terrorist label lacks a clear definition and can in practice be applied to any number of major criminals.
 
Frank Hart

Frank Hart

Colonel Zoidberg said:
I notice Russia isn’t on the list, and my first thought is that even Russia doesn’t have the death penalty anymore. And if 1988 is the earliest POD, the USSR - which did have the death penalty - would have to stick around (even the Tsar didn’t have it - the Russian Federation having it seems unlikely.)

Given that most of the Western world considers the death penalty unacceptable, you’re asking a lot of countries to be bigger assholes than Russia. If Russia becomes kinder and gentler, the likelihood of the death penalty coming back is a long shot; if they’re run by an asshole, you would need ALL the ASBs and a few that don’t exist to get most of those countries to willingly look worse than Russia.
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All of Eurasia is included. That would include Russia for starters.
 
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