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

Around a third of countries actively retain the death penalty.

At least 3,000 people (and probably considerably more) were sentenced to death during 2007, and at the end of the year around 25,000 were on death row around the world - with Pakistan and the USA accounting for about half this figure between them.

China carries out by far the greatest number of actual executions. While Amnesty International has confirmed at least 470 executions there during 2007 the true figure is certain to be much higher. Estimates suggest the annual figure may have been as high as 7,500 in recent years - although it is believed this has dropped back since the beginning of 2007 when the Supreme People's Court (SPC) took over responsibility for hearing appeals.

Outside China, at least 800 people were put to death in 23 countries during 2007 - with Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iraq and the USA the main contributors.

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 2007, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution 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 overwhelming majority (104 votes to 54) and adds further momentum to the abolitionist movement.

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