The death penalty is envisaged for 14 crimes.

Parliament voted for abolition on February 10, 1998 following an initiative by President Haydar Aliyev in January 1998. Following the abolition of the death penalty, 128 death row inmates had their sentences commuted. Azerbaijan had observed a moratorium on executions since 1993, motivated by the desire to join the Council of Europe.
The last execution took place in 1992. In the separatist region of Nagorno-Karabakh, the death penalty is a legal punishment for crimes committed in peacetime and in wartime. The de facto Criminal Code of Nagorno-Karabakh is the Criminal Code of the Republic of Armenia 1961. It provides for the death penalty as an exceptional punishment, until its full abolition, for 23 crimes. However Nagorno-Karabakh has observed a de facto moratorium on executions since 1997.