Saudi Arabia and the Juvenile Death Penalty: An International Legal Appraisal

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Arnav Laroia is a fourth-year law student at The West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences (WBNUJS) in Kolkata, India. He has strong academic interests in public international law, international humanitarian law, criminal law, and constitutional law. He also serves as the Chief of Staff—South Asia at JURIST, the world’s only law school-based comprehensive legal news service reporting on the rule of law in crisis.

Introduction

On August 21, 2025, Saudi authorities executed Jalal al-Labbad, a young Shi’a man sentenced to death for offenses allegedly committed during protests in 2011 and 2012, when he was still a minor. Al-Labbad was arrested without a warrant in 2017. In the period leading up to his criminal trial, the authorities refused him access to legal counsel and subjected him to months of solitary confinement and physical abuse. His family was not informed of his date of execution, and upon learning about his death on social media, was not permitted access to his body. The case instantly attracted international condemnation. UN human rights officials denounced the execution as a blatant breach of Saudi Arabia's treaty commitments and called for the government to suspend all death penalties ordered for crimes committed before the age of 18. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International also criticized the act, highlighting the increasing trend of capital punishment used against political opposition and minorities. The case reflects the persistent conflict between domestic Saudi practices and international human rights obligations, posing pressing questions about the enforcement, the responsibility, and the universality of the prohibition on juvenile executions.

Legal Framework Under International Law

Executing individuals for crimes they committed as minors violates one of the strictest prohibitions of international human rights law. Article 37(a) of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC)  states that "neither capital punishment nor life imprisonment without possibility of release shall be imposed for offences committed by persons under 18 years of age." The CRC has attained near-universal ratification with 196 States parties, inscribing this prohibition as a binding norm of international consensus. Saudi Arabia ratified the CRC in 1996 and therefore is legally bound under Article 37(a).

Moreover, Article 6(1) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) recognizes the right to life, and is reinforced by Article 6(5), which forbids the death sentence for crimes committed by those under the age of 18. Although the UN considers the ban to be customary international law, Saudi Arabia is not a signatory to the ICCPR, hence this provision does not immediately bind it. Still, it is important to note that The Human Rights Committee's General Comment No. 36 highlights that this ban is absolute and non-derogable, even in times of public emergencies. Article 6(1) is also closely connected to fair-trial assurances; wherein execution of juveniles is preceded by unfair proceedings, the violation is exacerbated.

The Convention against Torture (CAT), ratified by Saudi Arabia in 1997, entails further legal obligations regarding the death penalty.  CAT forbids the use of evidence derived by torture, and interprets the application of the death penalty following ill-treatment or coercion as a violation of Articles 2 and 15. Al-Labbad's solitary confinement for extended periods of time, physical abuse allegations, and forced confessions trigger these protections directly.

Saudi Arabia sought to circumscribe these commitments with sweeping interpretive reservations upon ratification of the CRC to ensure consistency with Islamic law. However, UN treaty bodies have emphasized that such reservations cannot be invoked to justify juvenile executions, because they remain incompatible with Article 37(a) of the CRC and are increasingly recognized as prohibited under customary international law. The legal framework thus leaves little ambiguity: juvenile executions, especially when coupled with torture and biased trials, are incompatible with Saudi Arabia's international commitments.

Domestic Law v. Practical Reality in Saudi Arabia’s Context 

On paper, Saudi Arabia introduced reforms that seemed to curb the scope of juvenile executions. In 2018, Saudi Arabia passed the Juveniles Law, which introduced procedural protections for children. Later, in 2020, a royal decree declared that the death penalty would no longer be imposed on people convicted of crimes committed before the age of 18, setting a maximum ten-year term in juvenile detention. Internationally, these steps were received as indications of positive development.

However, a closer reading shows significant loopholes and gaps in Saudi Arabia’s efforts to limit juvenile executions. The 2020 royal decree specifically left out offences tried under the kingdom's counterterror legislation as well as certain types of crime under Islamic law (hudud and qisas). Consequently, numerous children suspected of taking part in political demonstrations or security offenses continue to face exposure to the death penalty. Accounts by the European Saudi Organization for Human Rights and Human Rights Watch have shown at least a dozen youth defendants remaining on death row in spite of the purported reforms.

The case of Jalal al-Labbad shows how juvenile executions operate in reality, despite purported progress. While his supposed involvement in demonstrations took place when he was a juvenile, he was tried under terrorism charges in front of the Specialized Criminal Court. His detention involved extended periods of solitary confinement and physical torture, in flagrant disregard for domestic legal protections and international commitments. Depriving him of legal counsel and failing to notify his family before his execution constituted additional violations, indicating systemic indifference towards guarantees of fair trial.

The ongoing practice of juvenile executions in Saudi Arabia follows not only from legislative loopholes, but from their intersection with politically motivated security prosecutions. By defining dissent as terrorism and relying on religion-based exceptions, the authorities preserve wide latitude to sentence minors to death. The fact that Jalal al-Labbad was charged with terrorism offenses for his participation in demonstrations serves as a critical illustration of a problematic disjuncture between Saudi Arabia's reformist discourse and its deep-rooted punitive culture.

Comparative Perspectives on Juvenile Executions

To get a better understanding of Saudi Arabia’s stance on the death penalty but also prospects for reform, it is essential to examine and compare both countries that have moved toward abolition but also those who maintain such practices.

Iran remains one of the world’s most persistent violators of the prohibition against juvenile executions. Despite being a party to the CRC and the ICCPR, Iran continues to impose the death penalty on juvenile offenders under its Islamic Penal Code. The law distinguishes between hudud (fixed punishments under Shari’a) and qisas (retributive punishments), both of which may still be applied to individuals convicted of capital crimes committed as minors. Though the law provides for judicial discretion to take into account the mental maturity of the offender, in reality, courts often affirm death sentences following routine examinations. Human rights groups have reported dozens of juvenile executions over the last ten years, including some as recently as 2023.

These structural issues are replicated in Saudi Arabia: age assessment is usually unreliable, torture-derived confessions are still admissible, and political dissent is often recharacterized as criminal under religious or security legislation. Iran, like Saudi Arabia, uses its religious legal system to deflect complete adherence to treaty commitments. This comparative illustration shows that as long as governments maintain religious­, or security-based exceptions­, child executions will persist despite unequivocal international bans. It further emphasizes the importance of bolstering technical protections—such as independent age determination and exclusionary provisions for coerced confessions—accompanied by diplomatic pressure.

By contrast, some states have moved towards total abolition of juvenile executions. The United States, for instance, ended juvenile executions twenty years ago by way of constitutional adjudication. In Roper v. Simmons (2005), the Supreme Court ruled that the Eighth Amendment's ban on "cruel and unusual punishments" forbade capital punishment for offenses committed by those under the age of 18. The Court had relied on evolving standards of decency, neuropsychological evidence of adolescent development, and comparative international practice. Significantly, the judgment insisted on reduced culpability and increased potential for rehabilitation in children, rendering categorical abolition  imperative.

While U.S. constitutional law has no binding effect in foreign jurisdictions, Roper has been cited as an influential authority in many contexts, including human rights institutions. The abolition of juvenile executions in the United States demonstrates a case where scientific argument and comparative analogy were used to align domestic law with international standards. For Saudi Arabia, implementing a similar strategy using teenage brain science and the potential of rehabilitation may provide a less politically antagonistic route to compliance.

Europe offers an alternative abolitionist approach. The United Kingdom completely abolished the death penalty in 1998. In line with this, the European Union requires the abolition of capital punishment as a condition of membership. In addition, the EU employs diplomatic means, including démarches and conditional co-operation agreements, to put retentionist states under pressure to conform. This illustrates how regional systems can build normative pressure and provide incentives for compliance in excess of treaty obligation.

The Way Forward

In the short term, Saudi Arabia should immediately halt all executions for offenses committed by individuals under the age of eighteen. The case of Jalal al-Labbad underscores the need for basic procedural safeguards, including timely notification to families and access to independent autopsies consistent with international best practices. These measures are not only humanitarian imperatives but also absolute obligations under the CRC and CAT.

Medium-term reform necessitates reconciling Saudi law with the Kingdom's treaty obligations. This involves withdrawing or clarifying reservations to the CRC that undermine the ban on juvenile executions, so that counterterrorism and religious-law exceptions cannot trump Article 37(a). Domestic legislation must unequivocally prohibit the imposition of death sentences on children, regardless of the category of crime. In addition, procedural protections should be enhanced, including access to qualified legal counsel, mandatory age assessments conducted by independent experts, and strict exclusion of involuntary confessions.

The international community must apply concerted pressure. UN special procedures and treaty bodies need to continue highlighting cases where juvenile executions occur. States with diplomatic or economic engagement with Saudi Arabia need to incorporate human rights conditions into bilateral relations. In addition, comparative jurisprudence from cases like Roper v. Simmons and European abolitionist practice can provide persuasive models grounded in science, adolescent development, and rehabilitation. Framing reform through these evidence-based approaches, rather than politicized critique, may make such narratives more acceptable to domestic stakeholders.

Jalal al-Labbad's death sentence and execution are testament to the ongoing gulf between Saudi Arabia's international human rights obligations and its practice within the penal system. To execute an individual who was a minor at the time of the crime disregards not only the  CRC and CAT provisions but also the very foundations of justice and child protection. Cures lie in categorical elimination of juvenile executions, procedural protection, and continued international activism. Only by enacting such reforms can Saudi Arabia bring its criminal justice system into conformity with accepted international human rights standards.