1998. Death penalty abolished for crimes committed under military jurisdiction.
1998. On a free vote during a debate on the Human Rights Bill on the 20th of May, M P’s decided by 294 to 136, a 158 majority, to adopt provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights outlawing capital punishment for murder except "in times of war or imminent threat of war." The Bill incorporates the European Convention on Human Rights into British law.
1998. The Criminal Justice Bill of July 31st, removed High Treason and piracy with violence as capital crimes, thus effectively ending capital punishment.
1999. On the 27th of January the Home Secretary (Jack Straw) formally signed the 6th protocol of the European Convention of Human Rights in Strasbourg, on behalf of the British government formally abolishing the death penalty in the UK. It had been still theoretically available for treason and piracy up to 1998 but it was extremely unlikely that even if anyone had been convicted of these crimes over the preceding 30 years, that they would have actually been executed. Successive Home Secretaries had always reprieved persons sentenced to death in the Channel Islands and Isle of Man where the death sentence for murder could still be passed but the Royal Prerogative was observed