Live-streamed Executions and Human Dignity in International Law
Date: 21/10/2026
On 15 October 2026, US President Donald Trump cancelled the plan to broadcast the firing squad execution of Nidal Hasan. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth had announced the broadcast days earlier. The administration presented the stream as a tool of transparency and deterrence: Hegseth argued that people must understand the serious consequences of such crimes, and Trump suggested it could deter terrorists by showing the world how America treats them. Criticism from Republicans, religious leaders and international observers followed. Hasan, a former army psychiatrist, killed 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009, and his execution remains scheduled for 3 December. This article argues that live-streamed executions breach the prohibition of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment and violate the inherent dignity of the condemned person. The cancellation ended the immediate controversy, but it left that legal question open.
A practice without precedent
Reuters reported that no other country is known to televise or livestream judicial executions. Death penalty experts consulted by Reuters could identify no earlier lawful execution broadcast live to the public. Public executions themselves have become rare. Of the at least 2,707 executions recorded by Amnesty International across 17 countries in 2025, only two states, Iran and Afghanistan, carried out public executions, with at least 11 in Iran and six in Afghanistan.
Live-streamed executions would therefore place the United States in a category that almost no state occupies. They would also move a public practice onto the permanent, global medium of the internet. A public execution reaches a limited crowd. A stream reaches anyone with a phone, and copies can circulate indefinitely. Published footage also escapes state control, which makes later removal difficult.
The legal framework
Several instruments govern the question of whether a state may lawfully broadcast an execution to the public. Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights protects the right to life, and Article 5 prohibits cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights repeats these protections in Articles 6 and 7. Article 10 adds that persons deprived of liberty must receive humane treatment and respect for their inherent dignity. These provisions apply to every prisoner, including those convicted of terrorism offences. The United States ratified the Covenant in 1992 and is bound by these provisions, subject to its reservations.
The UN position
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights told AFP that livestreaming an execution is equivalent to a public execution and breaches the absolute prohibition of torture. Amnesty International argues that international human rights bodies have long treated public executions as incompatible with the ban on cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. The organisation also warns that livestreamed executions would compound the cruelty of capital punishment. This matters because it shows that the prohibition does not need to be rewritten for the internet age. If a livestream is equivalent to a public execution, existing law already covers it, and the United States cannot treat the question as new.
Dignity and instrumentalisation
Human dignity anchors this analysis. Dignity attaches to every person regardless of guilt, and a conviction for mass murder does not remove it. A broadcast turns the condemned person into an exhibit. The administration stated its purpose openly: Trump suggested that a stream could deter terrorists by showing the world how America treats them. That rationale treats the prisoner as a message rather than a person. It also rests on a weak empirical foundation, because Amnesty International states that no evidence shows a unique deterrent effect from the death penalty.
The case for transparency
Supporters of broadcasting offer a transparency argument. Hegseth argued that people must understand the serious consequences of such crimes, and public scrutiny can expose botched procedures. The argument has some force, but it proves too little. Transparency does not require a public stream. Official records, independent observers and in-person witnesses can scrutinise an execution without turning it into online content. Victims’ families may also attend in person, as at any US execution. Republican Representative Austin Scott, who supports Hasan’s execution, warned that the practice resembles jihadist propaganda.
A fragile safeguard
The cancellation offers limited comfort. Trump reversed course through a social media post, not through a binding rule. John Galligan, a lawyer for Hasan on civil matters, told the BBC that the livestream violated Army regulations, which suggests a domestic restriction existed yet failed to prevent the announcement. The United States also qualified its Covenant obligations when it ratified. Its reservation on Article 7 states that ‘cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment’ means only the cruel and unusual treatment or punishment prohibited by the Fifth, Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. International law’s ban therefore operates in the US only as far as domestic constitutional doctrine allows. Since I am not aware of any US court ruling on whether a broadcast execution is ‘cruel and unusual’, the Covenant offers little independent protection.
Conclusion
Live-streaming executions would put the United States among the few states that carry out public killings, and it would do so through a medium that makes the footage permanent. The prohibition of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment and the principle of human dignity both reject treating a condemned person as a message, and the transparency and deterrence arguments do not justify it. Yet the cancellation was a political decision, and the US reservation to Article 7 leaves the law without a clear answer. Congress and the Department of Defence should codify a clear ban on broadcasting executions. UN human rights bodies should state expressly that live-streamed executions breach the prohibition of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. Until then, the Hasan reversal reflects political discretion rather than legal restraint. International human rights law demands more: a state that takes a life must not turn that act into a spectacle.
