The Lebanese Parliament adopted on Tuesday, 11 August 2026 the bill abolishing the death penalty in Lebanon, after introducing several amendments to the text. The reform replaces the death penalty with life imprisonment and creates, for crimes committed after the entry into force of the new law, an aggravated life sentence, according to an amendment proposed by MP Abdel Rahman Bizri. The vote ends, in law, a sentence that Lebanon had no longer applied since 2004, even if the courts continued to impose death sentences. It constitutes a major break in the country’s criminal history and makes Lebanon the first State in the Middle East to formally abolish the death penalty. However, it was not the first Arab country to do so: Djibouti, a member of the Arab League, had abolished it from its legislation in 1995.
Capital punishment replaced by life
The decision was announced after the plenary discussion. According to the National Information Agency, MPs approved the proposal after amending its provisions on the replacement of death sentences. The most important change concerns the distinction between pre- and post-enforcement crimes.
According to the amendment defended by Abdel Rahman Bizri, crimes committed before the adoption of the reform and punishable so far by the death penalty will be punishable by life imprisonment. For crimes committed after the entry into force of the new law, the alternative penalty will be increased life imprisonment. The purpose of this distinction is to resolve the fate of existing convictions while defining a more severe penalty for future offences that would have previously been punishable by death.
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The adopted text thus changes in depth the architecture of the penalties provided for in Lebanese law. The draft considered by the parliamentary committees already provided for the abolition of the death penalty wherever it appeared in legislation and for its replacement with a new form of life with aggravated forced labour. However, the practical modalities of this new penalty will need to be clarified, particularly in a prison system where forced labour provisions are rarely applied.
No execution since 2004
The abolition comes after more than twenty-two years without execution in Lebanon. The death penalty was last applied in January 2004. Since then, the country had observed a de facto moratorium: no execution had been carried out, but the courts retained the possibility of imposing death sentences. Dozens of convictions have been handed down since 2004 before being suspended or commuted.
This situation placed Lebanon among the de facto abolitionist countries, but not among those that abolished the death penalty. The vote on 11 August changed that status. The death penalty is no longer only unapplied; Parliament decided to abolish criminal legislation and replace it with custodial sentences.
The legislative process had begun several months earlier. A bill was tabled in Parliament on 7 October 2025 by seven deputies from several political groups. The text had then been considered by the relevant committees. On 9 July 2026, three joint parliamentary committees had agreed to a version allowing the abolition of capital punishment throughout Lebanese law.
The plenary vote was initially expected in July before being postponed in the context of wider political disagreements, including the draft general amnesty. Parliament finally took over the case on 11 August. MP Abdel Rahman Bizri spoke at the beginning of the examination to ask in particular that the abolition of the death penalty be clearly separated from the debate on amnesty.
Abolition and amnesty remain two separate files
This distinction is of political importance. Abolition does not mean that those convicted of the most serious crimes will be released or automatically benefit from a significant reduction in their sentence. On the contrary, the system adopted maintains the principle of a life sentence and provides for an aggravated form for crimes committed after the entry into force of the reform.
The debate comes at a time when Parliament is at the same time considering a general amnesty law, a much more disputed issue. Families of military and security forces killed in attacks by Islamist groups have expressed their opposition to any measures that could reduce the penalties imposed on those responsible for such crimes. The discussion on the death penalty took place in a climate in which abolition and amnesty might be confused, while they produced different legal effects.
The Minister of Justice, Adel Nassar, who is present in Parliament, described the adoption of the text as a « historical step ». Human rights organizations had campaigned for years to transform the de facto moratorium into legal abolition. They stressed, inter alia, that the retention of the death penalty in the texts continued to enable the courts to impose it despite the absence of executions.
Reform could also have implications for international judicial cooperation. Several abolitionist states refuse to extradite a person to a country where he or she faces the death penalty without any guarantees. The disappearance of this sanction of Lebanese law can therefore reduce a legal obstacle in some extradition cases, even if each request remains subject to the applicable rules and guarantees.
Lebanon is not the first abolitionist Arab country
At the regional level, the vote places Lebanon in a unique situation. Several Arab countries, including Tunisia, have for many years been observing moratoriums on executions while retaining the death penalty in their legislation. Others continue to apply it. Lebanon thus became the first country in the Middle East to formally abolish the death penalty from its penal system.
However, this wording must be distinguished from that of the « first Arab country ». Djibouti, which belongs to the Arab League, abolished the death penalty for all crimes in 1995. Lebanon is therefore not the first abolitionist Arab State in the legal sense, unlike some of the first reports published after the vote. His choice, however, remains unprecedented in his immediate environment and marks a break with the situation of most States in the Middle East.
The reform must now be translated into criminal practice. The courts will have to apply the new penalties to the cases concerned, while the situation of those already sentenced to death will have to be adjusted in accordance with the transitional provisions passed on Tuesday. The precise definition of « aggravated perpetuity » and the manner in which forced labour is performed will also need to be clarified.
The vote of 11 August thus put an end to more than two decades of an intermediate situation in which Lebanon no longer carried out executions while retaining the death penalty in its codes. The next challenge will now be the practical application of the new sanctions and the treatment of convictions already handed down, while Parliament is continuing its separate examination of the much more controversial dossier of the general amnesty.
