The right to life is the most fundamental human right. The death penalty is the most severe punishment and is commonly specified in the laws of many countries. This penalty deprives the convicted person of the right to life. Therefore, the death penalty is only applied to the most serious crimes. The application of the death penalty to drug-related crimes in relation to the right to life is a controversial issue and applied differently in different countries. This paper shall analyze the relationship between the right to life and the application of the death penalty to drug-related crimes in order to study the application of the death penalty to drug-related crimes both internally and domestically. The legal issues studied by this paper include legal issues related to the right to life, the application of death penalty, the legitimacy of application of death penalty to drug-related crimes, the trend of applying death penalty to drug-related crimes in the world and reference to the practices in Vietnam. By this paper, the author shall present the process of formation and development trend of Vietnamese law provisions related to the application of the death penalty to drug-related crimes, assess the compatibility between current Vietnamese regulations on this issue and international human rights standards.
