China's top court has urged judges across the country to limit the use of the death penalty against convicted individuals.

According to the official Xinhua news agency, guidelines have been sent out to courts across the country saying the penalty should only be handed to a "tiny minority" of the most serious cases with sufficient evidence.

The policy is known as "justice tempered with mercy," Xinhua said, although it added that the court had reiterated that the death penalty should be "resolutely" handed down when merited.

According to human rights group Amnesty Internationa, China is probably the world's most prolific state executioner, with at least 7,000 people sentenced to death and 1,718 people executed in 2008, the latest year for which figures are available.

China does not give official reports on the number of executions it carries out.

Under Chinese law the death penalty is applicable to more than 60 crimes, including several non-violent and economic offences.

Three years ago China's Supreme People's Court regained the power of final approval over executions after it had been devolved to provincial high courts in the 1980s.

At the time officials promised to apply the death penalty more carefully.

China's high rate of executions was thrown into the international spotlight at the end of last year when a British citizen caught smuggling heroin was put to death.

Akmal Shaikh was executed on December 29, despite pleas for clemency from his family and the British prime minister, who said he was mentally unsound.