Two issues have attracted sustained attention in the field of criminal justice and criminal law: drug laws and the death penalty. The global phenomenon of the War on Drugs and the continuing debates over capital punishment have engaged not only legal scholars but also researchers across the social sciences. The volume edited by Wing-Cheong Chan, Mai Sato, and Michael Hor offers an invaluable examination of the intersection of these two issues in the Asian context. Through a comparative lens, the book documents and analyses legal changes in drug laws, similarities and differences in states’ approaches to the death penalty, the life experiences of drug offenders and individuals on death row, and the key actors shaping capital drug laws. The book examines seven Asian jurisdictions: Mainland China, Iran, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and Hong Kong.

Among the many merits of the book, perhaps its most important contribution is its demonstration of the constant entanglement between punitiveness and leniency across many Asian countries. Several chapters document a gradual movement toward more controlled and, in some cases, more lenient approaches to serious drug offenses. For instance, chapter 2, written by Xi Li, highlights how China’s Supreme People’s Court has tightened evidentiary requirements in death penalty cases, contributing to a relative reduction in executions. Ronnakorn Bunmee in chapter 9 shows that since 2021, Thailand has promoted a public health approach to drug control, partly in response to severe prison overcrowding. While Singapore (chapter 4 by Wing-Cheong Chan, Michael Hor) resumed executions after the COVID-19 pandemic and continues to enforce strict drug policies, the chapter notes that ‘[…] there are faint glimmers of easing at the margin’ when examining judicial practices (p. 92).

However, these gradual improvements occur under the enduring shadow of the War on Drugs in Asia. The broader commitment to harsh punishment for drug offenses remains largely intact rather than fundamentally dismantled. This punitive culture is reflected not only in sentencing outcomes but also in how defendants are treated during criminal proceedings. A case study on Iran (chapter 3), written by Mai Sato and Leavides Domingo-Cabarrubias, clearly illustrates this tension: although the legal threshold for imposing the death penalty in drug cases has been raised, mandatory death sentences remain. More importantly, convictions continue to rely heavily on confessions with limited procedural safeguards. Thaatchaayini Kananatu (chapter 5) describes people on death row in Malaysia as a ‘non-rights-bearing group,’ occupying an exceptional zone where basic legal protections are effectively forfeited. This lack of procedural protection is compounded by enforcement practices that often target low-level participants rather than major traffickers, as Carolyn Hoyle and Parvais Jabbar illustrated in their chapter on Indonesia (chapter 6). As a result, the War on Drugs can easily become a war on the poor or on certain ethnic groups. The role of drug law in controlling, punishing, and marginalizing certain groups emerges as a recurring theme throughout the book.

The volume also identifies several key actors capable of shaping capital drug laws and the penal practices. These actors include political leaders (chapter 7 by Daniel Pascoe), higher courts (chapter 2 by Xi Li), and civil society networks (chapter 8 by Leavides Domingo-Cabarrubias and Mai Sato). At the same time, some institutions that appear powerful may in practice play a far more limited role. The chapter on Southeast Asian narcotic agencies, written by Daniel Pascoe, argues that, despite their prominent public profiles, these organisations function largely as cogs within a broader political machinery. Pascoe suggests that this discrepancy arises because such agencies serve as ‘[…] the institutional face of Southeast Asian governments’ drug-fighting efforts,’ thereby providing a form of perceived performance legitimacy in governance (p. 189). Finally, the book reminds us that shifts in penal policy are shaped not only by domestic actors but also by regional dynamics. Hong Kong (chapter 10 by Karen Joe-Laidler and Kate Lowe), as a special administrative region of mainland China, has been significantly influenced by the penal culture of its neighbours.

In addition to shedding light on the development of capital drug laws in Asia, the book raises further questions that could serve as entry points for future research. Here I suggest two. First, what structural and historical forces make particular actors influential in shaping drug policy? For instance, the chapter on the Philippines shows that while non-governmental organisations played a key role in preventing the reimposition of capital punishment, this form of ‘leadership from below’ was made possible by specific institutional and historical conditions. These include the long history of anti-death penalty advocacy since the late 1980s and the existence of the Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines, an independent constitutional body.

Second, many of the findings in this volume encourage us to disentangle the relationship between punitiveness and leniency in the context of drug law. Focusing solely on overall ‘trends’ may obscure the possibility that harsh penal policies and lenient practices (or lenient policies and harsh practices) can coexist in layered and structured ways. In other words, we should not assume that harsh laws necessarily produce harsh punishment, nor that more lenient policies (such as public health approaches to drug control) automatically translate into lenient penal practices. As sociologists of punishment have long demonstrated, the relationship between penal policy and penal practice is often far more complex.

Overall, the book is a must-read for anyone interested in drug laws, capital punishment, and penal practices in Asia. It not only provides a vivid and comprehensive account of both legal doctrine and people’s experiences but also stimulates intellectual curiosity and encourages further inquiry into many important questions.