The Evolutions of the New Islamic Penal Code in the Matter of Application of Criminal Laws in space

The new Islamic Penal Code of 2013 has approached to the topic of “Application of criminal laws in space” in a chapter under the same title including some changes in comparison to previous Islamic Penal Code of 1991, which can be regarded as the evolutions of the new Code. However, some of these changes and evolutions are really a return to the provisions of the Penal Code of 1972 – a return which makes it difficult to consider the evolutions as an innovation. The most significant return is the limited recognition of foreign criminal judgments which can be considered as a milestone in international judicial cooperations. Providing criminal jurisdiction based on the nationality of the victim (passive personality principle) and establishing the basis for authentication of international legal customary rules as a source of universal jurisdiction for Iranian courts are two other considerable innovations of the new Code.