Capital punishment was abolished in Ukraine in 2000. In 1995 Ukraine had entered the Council of Europe and thus (at the time) it was obliged to undertook to abolish the death penalty. The Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine's parliament) introduced amendments to the then acting Criminal Code in 2000, according to which “death penalty” was withdrawn from the list of official punishments of Ukraine. Ukraine carried out its last execution in 1997 according to Amnesty International.