Abstract

This note argues that contemporary capital punishment practices in the United States, specifically lethal injection and execution via nitrogen hypoxia, violate international jus cogens norms regarding torture and nonconsensual human experimentation. Though often discussed as means of obtaining a more humane death, these methods have been developed and implemented without scientific validation, medical oversight, or meaningful transparency. The adoption of secrecy statutes, collapse of the lethal injection drug supply chain, and introduction of a novel execution method have coalesced to produce an execution regime characterized by untested and largely unknown protocols. Consequently, the administration of capital punishment is marked by unreliable drug sourcing and a growing pattern of procedural failures. The following note situates these practices within the broader international human rights framework, tracing their incompatibility with the Nuremberg Code, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the Convention Against Torture. It further emphasizes the racialized history of prisoner research and capital punishment in U.S., underscoring how secrecy and experimentation disproportionately burden Black prisoners. Against the backdrop of a global consensus trending toward abolition, this note asserts that U.S. execution practices not only contravene binding peremptory norms but also demand international scrutiny and domestic reconsideration.

Keywords: capital punishment, jus cogens norms, lethal injection, international human rights framework, racialized history of prisoner research, secrecy and experimentation, International scrutiny, peremptory norms