On 13 March 2012, Mongolia acceded to the Second Optional Protocol

On 13 March 2012, Mongolia acceded to the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), aiming at the abolition of the death penalty.
Although the death penalty remains within its jurisdiction until the criminal laws providing for it are repealed, the accession without reservations to the Second Protocol, which entered into full force and effect on 13 June 2012, makes Mongolia a country totally abolitionist.
In fact, under Article 1, paragraphs 1 and 2, of the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, “No one within the jurisdiction of a State Party to the present Protocol shall be executed,” and “Each State Party shall take all necessary measures to abolish the death penalty within its jurisdiction.”
On 5 January 2012, the Mongolian Parliament had approved the bill, which ratifies the Second Optional Protocol, by a large majority of MPs.
On 14 January 2010, President Tsakhia Elbegdorj had announced a moratorium on the death penalty. “The majority of the world’s countries have chosen to abolish the death penalty. We should follow this path,” Elbegdorj said. “From tomorrow, I’ll pardon those on death row,” he said. “I suggest commuting the death penalty to a 30-year severe jail sentence.” In his speech announcing the moratorium, President Tsakhia Elbegdorj noted that 2011 was the centenary of Mongolia’s restoration of independence and he called on Mongolians to mark the occasion by ensuring that no Mongolian citizen would be deprived of life at the hands of the State. In October 2011, Hands Off Cain decided to confer “The Abolitionist of the Year” Award for 2011 upon President Elbegdorj.
After having been a satellite State of the Soviet Union for 65 years, in 1990, Mongolia began the transition towards democracy by legalizing opposition parties and holding its first multiparty elections.
After modifications to the Penal Code in 1994, the crimes punishable by death were reduced to premeditated homicide, aggravated rape, rape of a minor, and crimes against the State involving acts of violence. Women over the age of 60 and men under the age of 18 could not be sentenced to death.
The Government of Mongolia did not make statistics on capital punishment available to the public. According to Amnesty International, there were at least 3 executions in 2006, and Amnesty International, in the absence of reliable sources, believes that it is possible that more executions were carried out in 2007, while at least five people were executed in 2008. Since then, no executions have been carried out in Mongolia.
On 18 December 2014, Mongolia co-sponsored and voted again in favour of the Resolution on a Moratorium on the Use of the Death Penalty at the UN General Assembly.