Iran Tribunal is an international People’s Tribunal and a non-binding legal tribunal residing in

The Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital of ...

, the Netherlands, aiming to investigate serious allegations of

Human Rights Human rights are Morality, moral principles or Social norm, normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for ce ...

violations and

Crimes against humanity Crimes against humanity are widespread or systemic acts committed by or on behalf of a ''de facto'' authority, usually a state, that grossly violate human rights. Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity do not have to take place within the ...

in the

Islamic Republic of Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

during the 1980s. It was founded in 2007, because no other judicial committee would investigate allegations made against the government of

. The Government of

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

was invited to take part in the Tribunal, but refused to co-operate.

Formation

The Tribunal was formed in 2007 by multiple victims and relatives of victims. The formation was greatly aided many distinguished lawyers and Human Rights activists. The steering committee started having regular meetings in October 2007 and was led by John Cooper QC, Sir Geoffrey Nice,

Kader Asmal Abdul Kader Asmal (8 October 1934 – 22 June 2011) was a South African politician. He was a professor of human rights at the University of the Western Cape, chairman of the council of the University of the North and vice-president of the A ...

and

Richard Falk Richard Anderson Falk (born November 13, 1930) is an American professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University, and Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor's Chairman of the Board of Trustees. In 2004, he was listed as the author ...

. The tribunal is based on the model of

Russell Tribunal The Russell Tribunal, also known as the International War Crimes Tribunal, Russell–Sartre Tribunal, or Stockholm Tribunal, was a private People's Tribunal organised in 1966 by Bertrand Russell, British philosopher and Nobel Prize winner, and ...

Truth Commission

The Truth Commission constituted the investigative part of the Tribunal and was held in

Amnesty International Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...

headquarters in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

between 18th and 22 June 2012.
It collected witness statements from around 75 people, many of them were detainees of the regime, who had survived. Overall 100 people submitted evidence describing ''"the pattern of

arbitrary arrest and detention Arbitrary arrest and arbitrary detention are the arrest or detention of an individual in a case in which there is no likelihood or evidence that they committed a crime against legal statute, or in which there has been no proper due process of law ...

without trial, of rape, death sentences issued by kangaroo courts, children as young as 11 being executed, families made to pay for the bullets used to kill their relatives."'' The findings of The Truth Commission, including all of the oral submissions were published online.

The Tribunal

The Tribunal sat in the

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between the 25th and 27 October 2012. It was held before Johann Kriegler (presiding), John Dugard SC, Margaret Ratner Kunstler,

Michael Mansfield QC Michael Mansfield (born 12 October 1941) is an English barrister and head of chambers at Nexus Chambers. He was recently described as "The king of human rights work" by The Legal 500 and as a Leading Silk in civil liberties and human rights ...

Makau Mutua Makau W. Mutua (born 1958) is a Kenyan-American professor at the SUNY Buffalo School of Law and was its dean from 2008 to 2014. He teaches international human rights, international business transactions and international law. He is vice presiden ...

and Patricia Sellers.
The Tribunal published the interim judgement on 27 October 2012, finding that:
''The Islamic Republic of Iran bears absolute responsibility for gross violations of human rights against its citizens under the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights'' and
''The Islamic Republic of Iran has a strong case to answer for crimes against humanity under customary international law as applicable to Iran in the 1980s''.
The full judgement of the Tribunal was handed down on 5 February 2013.

Iran Tribunal Foundation

After presenting its ruling, on 23 June 2013 the general assembly of the Iran Tribunal decided to proceed with its work in the form of a new foundation, and named it the Iran Tribunal Foundation. As the legal successor of the tribunal, among its main tasks will be safeguarding the results of the tribunal, passing on its organizational and legal experiences and continue documenting crimes in Iran committed against political prisoners, focusing on the nineteen eighties. As such the tribunal proceedings may be considered as finalized per the date of establishing the foundation.(PDF document) Iran Tribunal Foundation's Constitution
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References

External links

* {{webarchive , url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191215164302/http://www.irantribunal.com/index.php/en/ , date=December 15, 2019 , title=Iran Tribunal International criminal law Human rights in Iran Organisations based in The Hague People's Tribunal Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran