List of panels making life or death decisions

Panels making life or death decisions about whether or not to kill individual persons operated worldwide. As an extension of government power, a variety of panels regularly make decisions regarding executions. In medicine, a death panel is a group that determines whether an elderly or infirm patient deserves life-saving medical treatment.

In the United states, former Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin repeatedly linked the concept to the America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009, the Obama Administration's health care reform act, calling such plans "downright evil." However, Palin's claims about the proposed law were debunked in the media.

In Texas, the Advance Directives Act, known also as the Texas Futile Care Law, permits a board of physicians to allow a patient in their hospital to die if they determine further medical care would be futile. The law does require the panel to inform the patient's family two days before it meets to make its decision, and the family has 10 days to transfer its loved one to another facility.

In Britain, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence advises the National Health Service on which drugs are cost-effective, and has been accused of giving certain patients an early death sentence. However, patients may still chose to pay out of pocket, as currently may Americans when their health insurance provider denies their claim.

In California, health insurance companies are required by law to report all denials of claims to the Department of Managed Care, revealing 22% of all claims were rejected between 2002 and mid-2009 amounting to "real death panels in practice daily in the nation's biggest state" according to a Reuters report.

As of 2009, fifty-eight countries have a death penalty for certain crimes, and they have a broad range of trial, appeals, and execution processes. Both Japan and the United States have a Supreme Court which effectively acts as the highest ranking death panel making the penalty determination. In the People's Republic of China, which leads the world in executions at an estimated 5,000 in 2008, death penalty decisions are made by committee. However, beginning in 2007, judicial leaders began requiring a final review of every capital case by the Supreme People's Court which cut the number of exectutions in half. Iran and Saudi Arabia have an appeals process but nevertheless execute a high proportion of their prisoners.