Liu Renwen (ed.), Death Penalty Reform and State Governance, Beijing: Social Sciences Academic Press, December 2016.

The Communist Party of China puts forward the task of “advancing the modernization of the state governance system and capacity” and “gradually reducing the application of the death penalty” at the third plenary session of its Eighteenth Central Committee. This book carries out research on the reform of the death penalty system from the new perspective of state governance. Under the guidance of the spirit of the Third Plenary Session of the Eighteenth CPC Central Committee, the Amendment (IX) to the Criminal Law, following the abolition of the death penalty for thirteen non-violent crimes by Amendment (VIII) to the Criminal Law, further abolished the death penalty for nine more crimes, thereby reducing the number of crimes punishable by death in the Chinese Criminal Law from 68 to 46 in a short period of only few years. This book analyzes the domestic and international backgrounds of the current reform on the death penalty system in China, reviews the judicial and legislative processes of reduction of the death penalty, and puts forward proposals on how to further steadily advance the reform of the death penalty system and construct the supporting mechanisms at the next stage of the reform.