This is not the first time that a world-wide review of the death penalty has been carried out. It follows, after a long interval, the reports entitled Capital Punishment (1962), covering the years 1956 to 1960, written by Marc Ancel, Conseiller a la Cour de Cassation of France and Director of the Criminal Science Section of the Institute of Comparative Law of Paris, and Capital Punishment:
Developments 1961-1965 (1967), written by Norval Morris, Professor of Law and Criminology and Director of the Centre for Studies in Criminal Justice, University of Chicago. Both of these inquiries, which still deserve to be studied, were based on replies to a questionnaire sent by the Secretary-General to all member states of the United Nations and to certain non-member states. After the 'Morris report' was published the United Nations continued to send questionnaires in order to survey developments every five years. The first edition of this report The Death Penalty:
A World-Wide Perspective, which was published in 1989, was based on the findings of three quinquennial surveys conducted by the United Nations, covering the years 1969-73, 1974-78, and 1979-83. It was supplemented by the returns obtained in 1987 from a survey carried out by the United Nations on the extent to which various safeguards relating to the imposition of the death penalty in retentionist countries were being observed. In addition, information was gleaned from many individuals and from a survey of the published literature, including the reports and archives of Amnesty International, to which I was given generous access.

2. This new edition has employed the same method. It has been possible to draw on the United Nations Fourth and Fifth Quinquennial Surveys, covering the years 1984-88 and 1989-93, together with information from many other sources relating to the period up to the end of 1995.