How Alive is the Anti-Death Penalty Norm? Evidence from the British and French Treatment of ISIS Foreign Fighters


 This article enhances our understanding of international norms by developing a set of indicators to measure norm robustness at the domestic level. We apply these indicators to assess the robustness of the prohibition on the death penalty: a well-established international norm that terrorism-related cases have put to the test. In the United Kingdom, the government agreed to share information with the United States, possibly leading to the imposition of the death penalty on two ISIS foreign fighters of UK origin. France facilitated the trials of French ISIS fighters in Iraq, where they were sentenced to death. While the UK government, under public and judicial pressure, reversed its decision to cooperate with US authorities, the French government failed to acknowledge its violation of the death-penalty ban. We conclude that the anti-death penalty norm is more robust in the United Kingdom than in France. This case demonstrates how established democracies might break international human rights norms, and it reveals the nuances of the norm-decaying process.