Human Rights Based Reflections on Crime against Humanity Focusing on Torture (A Case Study of Jurisdiction of International Criminal Court)

Crimes against humanity are among the subjects that can be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court. Islamic Republic of Iran despite active participation in early stages of formation of this court has not joint this court due to certain considerations. One of the most significant of these considerations is the issue of crimes against humanity focusing on torture. Avoidance of torture and harassment of people has been identified as the most important human rights. There are scientific and well-established reasons that organized torture and harassment even in unofficial form cannot be considered a criminal policy. The most important ones of these reasons are as follows: necessity of human rights, speculative nature of judgments of the jurists as a method of deduction of criminal rules, evolution of criminal system, passage from verbally grounded jurisprudence to goal based jurisprudence and the necessity of paying attention to preservation of the content of governmental system around justice and ethics. It seems that the main hindrance that does not allow Iran to join the ICC is the domination of jurisprudential procedure and excessive attention to the external meanings of the Book, tradition as well as other sources of judgment in such issues. By finding a way out of this situation, interaction with the ICC and as a result avoidance of international isolation will be possible.