21 December 2007 :

the Inter American Court on Human Rights ruled that Barbados should abolish its mandatory death penalty.
The order came in a judgment handed down in a case brought by four convicted murderers. The court ruled that the government had violated the rights of the petitioners under the American Convention on Human Rights, by seeking to apply the death sentence.
According to a member of the Barbados legal team, Dr David Berry, once the laws are changed, as the court ordered, a murder conviction will not necessarily mean death but the judge has the discretion as to what form of punishment is appropriate.
The Inter-American Court of Human Rights is an autonomous judicial institution of the Organization of American States established in 1979, and whose objective is the application and interpretation of the American Convention on Human Rights and other treaties concerning this same matter.