[Map showing those countries which actively retain the death penalty]

As of 2010 more than two thirds of the world have abolished the death penalty in law or in practice, with only 58 actively retaining it.

China, as usual, carried out by far the greatest number of executions in 2009. The actual number is a state secret, but Amnesty International believes that it is in the thousands.

Outside China, at least 714 people were put to death in 18 countries during 2009, up slightly from 2007 - with Iran (388+), Iraq (120+), Saudi Arabia (69+), USA (52) and Yemen (30) the main contributors.

And at the end of the year as many as 26,000 were on death row around the world - with the largest death row populations being in Pakistan (approximately 7500) and the USA (over 3000).

Methods of state execution include: beheading, electrocution, gassing, hanging, lethal injection, shooting, and stoning.

The death penalty is most commonly applied in cases of murder, rape, armed robbery and drug trafficking.

However, in China the list of offences which can result in execution includes (among many others) - tax evasion, fraud, bigamy, publication of pornographic material, and hacking and other cyber crimes.

And blasphemy, apostasy, adultery, prostitution and homosexuality, among others, all attract the death penalty in a number of other states.

International law prohibits the execution of anyone who was under 18 years old at the time of the crime. However, a small number of countries, most notably Iran, continue to execute child offenders.

While it continues to be widely used, the death penalty has been in retreat across the globe over recent years.

More than 90 countries have now outlawed the death penalty altogether, and more than two thirds of all states have abolished it either in law or in practice.

And at the end of 2008, the United Nations General Assembly passed the second resolution in 12 months calling for a worldwide moratorium on the death penalty as a first step towards total abolition. While the resolution is non-binding, it was passed by an even larger majority than in 2007 (106 votes for and 46 against) and adds further momentum to the abolitionist movement.

[sources: Human Rights Research; Capital Punishment UK; Amnesty International; & Hands off Cain]