By the end of 1997, a total of 74 people had been executed in 17 States. This brought the number of people executed in the United States since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1977 to 432; 312 have been executed in the 1990's. At the end of 1997, over 3,300 people remained on death row in 35 States, the highest death-row population in the world. Amnesty International opposes the death penalty on the grounds that it is the ultimate cruel, inhuman, and degrading punishment and a violation of the right to life as proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The vast majority of executions worldwide are conducted in a small number of countries; 1997 saw the United States continue its move further into this category of nations; only China, Iran, and Saudi Arabia are known to have executed more prisoners during the year. Contrary to international safeguards and restrictions on the death penalty, the United States continues to execute mentally ill or mentally retarded prisoners and to reserve its right to use the death penalty against juvenile offenders. State authorities continue to flout their international obligations toward arrested foreign nationals; and a number of cases show that many on death row were sentenced after trials in which defendants did not receive the quality of legal representation expected under international standards. Fears are rising inside and outside the United States that such proceedings, coupled with the politicization of the death penalty and a narrowing of the opportunity for appeals, will increase the likelihood of death sentences against people innocent of the crimes for which they were convicted. 36 footnotes