As Iraq resumed car­ry­ing out the death penal­ty with the exe­cu­tion of three nation­als on September 1, the European Union (EU) expressed its hope that Iraq would aban­don cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. In a state­ment released after the exe­cu­tions, the EU not­ed, ​“The EU is of the view that the death penal­ty does not serve as an effec­tive deter­rent and any mis­car­riage of jus­tice, which might arise in any legal sys­tem, would be irre­versible. The EU there­fore regrets that the gov­ern­ment of Iraq has elect­ed to imple­ment the death penal­ty in these cas­es. …The EU is strong­ly opposed to the death penal­ty and con­demns its use. While rec­og­niz­ing the sov­er­eign right of the gov­ern­ment of Iraq to decide on judi­cial sen­tenc­ing, we strong­ly urge that the death penal­ty should be abolished.” 

(Islamic Republic News Agency, September 2, 2005). See International Death Penalty.

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