Genocide and the Necessity of Its Criminalization in Iranian Law

Genocide means any acts committed intentionally to destroy in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group. Various international instruments, from the international convention of prevention and punishment of genocide (1948) to the Rome statute for the establishment of international criminal court (1998), in protecting the existence and identification of these proposes require all the states to adopt necessary legislative and judicial measures to prevent genocide and to prosecute and punish the criminals. Criminalization and condemnation of genocide, as a serious international crime, is considered as Jus Cogens and Erga Omnes. Consequently, genocide has been criminalized in the internal law of more than 85 countries and they have ratified the necessary regulations to prevent the crime and punish the offenders. The treaty was ratified without reservation in Iran in 1953; however, no particular legislative and judicial measures to enforce the treaty have been made. It seems that criminalization of genocide in the Iranian legal system and confering jurisdiction to the Iranian courts to deal with this crime may be a great step in reinforcing the universal will in order to prevent the worst international crimes and it is essential to ratify the international criminal court statute.