The punishment has a long history. The first law to include the death penalty dates back to the time of Hammurabi, ruler of Babylon, in the 18th century BC. After that, it existed in the laws of Egypt, Greece, Rome, and other nations. The death penalty has been imposed in several forms, including crucifixion, drowning, beating to death, burning alive and impalement. Later it took other forms, such as beheading, boiling, roasting, and in the modern times, shooting. Over time, hanging (as in Iraq) became the common form of execution. In the eleventh century AD, the death penalty was banned in Britain except for crimes during wartime. However, it was soon brought back, and in the later period, thanks to the reign of Henry VIII, more than 72,000 people were sentenced to death. There, in the eighteenth century, 222 crimes were punishable by death (including stealing and cutting trees). It is only in the 20th century, during the era of rights discourse, that opinion against the death penalty emerged, and two-thirds of the world's countries have abolished it, either by law or in practice.

The status of the death penalty in international criminal law is not separable from international human rights law. The practice of punishment in these two international laws, like the domestic laws of countries, was permitted at some stages, semi-prohibited at others, and completely prohibited in the final stage of development of both laws. Of course, the prohibition of punishment is linked to the rise of the moral and values of nations, especially in the way people are treated, the view of the accused and the content of the legal system. Until the outbreak of World War II, the death penalty was permitted under criminal law. Seventeen of the Japanese and German war criminals were sentenced to death by both the Tokyo and Nuremberg military tribunals, and fifteen were executed. The death penalty was not prohibited in the human rights law in 1966, when the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights was adopted. Later, in the 1989 Optional Protocol to the Covenant, the penalty was reserved for wartime crimes. At the regional level, the 1955 European Convention on Human Rights reserves the punishment for serious wartime crimes. However, in 2002, an additional protocol to the European Convention banned the sanction altogether and no longer allows it to be imposed among member states. In criminal law, both the Rwanda and Former Yugoslavia criminal courts did not impose the sentence and did not have the power to impose it. Under the 1998 Rome Statute and the establishment of the International Criminal Court, the death penalty is no longer available, the court has only the power to punish by imprisonment, which can extend to life imprisonment.

The excuses for abolishing the death penalty are many. Some relate to the right to life, which must be protected by law. Some of them relate to the prohibition of torture and inhuman treatment, which are strict when imposing the death penalty, because what the state does to criminals falls into the category of torture and psychological abuse. Currently, 122 states have abolished the death penalty altogether, 9 have abolished it for ordinary crimes, and 23 abolitionist in practice (144 total). The sentence is carried out normally in 55 countries, including Iraq. According to Amnesty International, Iraq will rank sixth in the world in terms of the number of death penalties in 2023, after China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and the United States. However, the Kurdistan Region applies it mostly for terrorism crimes, otherwise it is generally one of the abolitionists in practice. It would be better if the Region lifted the punishment once and for all, because, as former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says, there is no evidence that the death penalty is effective in reducing the number and types of crimes.