4.1
Whilst concerns of human rights violations have been raised in Iran historically, the latest uprising, sparked by the death of Mahsa (Jina) Amini, has garnered significant international attention and demands for tangible responses from both international bodies, such as the United Nations (UN), as well as democratic nations, including Australia.
4.2
The evidence received throughout the committee’s inquiry indicated broad support for strong action by international bodies and nations that value human rights, including Australia.
4.3
This chapter will examine the main actions undertaken by the international community in relation to the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI).
Actions taken by the United Nations
4.4
A number of actions have been undertaken from within the UN. Of particular note is the establishment of an independent international fact-finding mission on the IRI through the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) and the removal of the IRI from the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) by the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). These two actions are detailed below.
United Nations Human Rights Council
4.5
The UNHRC is an inter-governmental body ‘responsible for strengthening the promotion and protection of human rights around the globe and for addressing situations of human rights violations and making recommendations on them. It has the ability to discuss all thematic human rights issues and situations that require its attention’.
4.6
According to Amnesty International Australia (Amnesty), in October 2022, ten UN experts, including the Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in the IRI, called on the UNHRC to urgently take action, including by establishing an international investigative mechanism on the IRI during a special session. It noted that this call was also supported by 42 human rights organisations, including Amnesty, as well as more than 1 million people across 218 countries and territories, including over 10,000 people in Australia.
4.7
A large number of submissions and witnesses indicated support for the establishment of an UNHRC fact-finding mission and requested that Australia do what it can to support its establishment.
4.8
For the first time, on 24 November 2022, the UNHRC scheduled an emergency special session ‘to address the deteriorating human rights situation in the Islamic Republic of Iran, especially with respect to women and children’.
4.9
The outcome of the UNHRC’s special session was agreement to establish an independent international fact-finding mission with appointments to be made by the President of the UNHRC. The fact-finding mission was established with the following mandate:
to thoroughly and independently investigate alleged human rights violations in the IRI related to the protests that began on 16 September 2022, with respect to women and children;
to establish the facts and circumstances surrounding the alleged violations;
to collect, consolidate and analyse evidence of such violations and preserve evidence, including in view of cooperation in any legal proceedings; and
to engage with all relevant stakeholders, including the Government of the IRI, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran, relevant UN entities, human rights organisations and civil society.
4.10
Six member states, including the People’s Republic of China, voted against the fact-finding mission.
4.11
UNHRC called upon the IRI to fully cooperate with the fact-finding mission, to grant unhindered access to the country without any delay, and to provide the members of the fact-finding mission with all information necessary to allow for the proper fulfilment of their mandate.
4.12
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) indicated that the Australian Government had ‘join[ed] others in urging Iran to cooperate fully with the mission and to provide free, full and unhindered access to the country’. However, it noted that it was ‘not confident there'll be any sort of open access and cooperation’.
4.13
On 28 November 2022, the IRI’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Mr Nasser Kanani, stated that there would be ‘no form of cooperation with this political committee which has been framed as a fact-finding committee’ which was instead ‘taking advantage of human rights mechanisms to exert political pressure on independent countries’.
4.14
The fact-finding mission is due to present an oral update at the UNHRC’s
fifty-third session in June 2023 and to present a comprehensive report on its findings at its fifth-fifth session in March 2024.
Views on the establishment of a fact-finding mission into the IRI
4.15
As noted, support for a UNHRC fact-finding mission was called for across a number of submissions. Amnesty, in particular, stated that it had been ‘working towards the establishment of an international investigative and accountability mechanism on Iran for years’ and that ‘its establishment sends a clear message to the Iranian authorities that they can no longer commit crimes under international law without fear of consequences’.
4.16
Professor Ben Saul, Challis Chair of International Law at the University of Sydney and an Associate Fellow of Chatham House (the Royal Institute of International Affairs) in London, also supported the establishment of an independent, international investigative mechanism. He explained that:
As UN commissions of inquiry on Ukraine and elsewhere demonstrate, such mechanisms enable independent fact-finding and recording of evidence, which facilitates potential future national or international prosecutions and other accountability mechanisms.
4.17
Professor Saul, however, also called for consistency in Australia’s approach to human rights diplomacy.
4.18
Amnesty also drew on comparisons with other fact-finding missions as a useful demonstration of their potential to pursue accountability for human rights abuses. Amnesty outlined that:
“The Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar collects, consolidates, preserves and analyses evidence of the most serious international crimes and violations of international law committed in Myanmar since 2011. It prepares case files that can be used in courts or tribunals to hold perpetrators accountable”.
Due to the work of the Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar, the International Court of Justice is currently considering allegations that Myanmar has failed to fulfill its obligations to prevent and punish acts of genocide committed against the Rohingya people in Myanmar as required under their international obligations.
Any Independent Investigative Mechanism on Iran could serve a similar purpose and assist with national courts in regards to universal jurisdiction.
4.19
Amnesty added that the establishment of the fact-finding mission on the IRI:
… also renews its calls for all states to exercise universal jurisdiction to criminally investigate and prosecute all officials including those in security, intelligence, prosecutorial and judicial positions suspected of ordering or committing crimes under international law and other grave violations of human rights, including the right to life, and issue arrest warrants when there is sufficient evidence. Investigations must include superiors who knew or should have known that a subordinate was committing or about to commit these acts but did not take all the reasonable and necessary measures within their power to prevent, repress or punish them.
4.20
Now that the fact-finding mission has been established, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), the peak organisation for representing Jews in Australia, called for Australia to provide ‘[p]ractical support in the form of law-enforcement and intelligence resources for collecting and sharing evidence’, and expressed the view that ‘Australia’s support for this process should not merely be rhetorical’.
4.21
Similarly, the National Assembly of Iranian Jurists (NAJ), a non-profit international organisation promoting democracy and justice in Iran, called on the Australian Government to support the fact-finding mission through the ‘provision of subject experts and resources’.
Commission on the Status of Women
4.22
The CSW was established by the UN ECOSOC in 1946 and is ‘the principal global intergovernmental body exclusively dedicated to the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women’.
4.23
At the time of the committee referral by the Senate, both Iran and Australia were members of the CSW. There had been calls for Iran to be removed from the CSW since its election in 2021, most notably from United Nations Watch (UN Watch), a non-profit organisation dedicated to holding the UN accountable to its founding principles, which gave evidence to this inquiry.
4.24
In Australia, the federal opposition called for the IRI to be removed from the CSW following the death of Mahsa (Jina) Amini in September 2022.
Views on the appropriateness of the IRI’s membership on CSW
4.25
Overwhelmingly, submissions requested that Australia support the removal of the IRI from the CSW. In fact, UN Watch noted that it had been calling for the UNHRC to hold a special session on the IRI’s human rights violations for over a decade. UN Watch had also prepared a draft resolution that was submitted to United States (US) Secretary of State Antony Blinken and is included as an Annex to its submission.
4.26
The ECAJ noted in its submission that ‘Iran is one of only six countries in the world which has neither ratified, acceded to nor signed the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women’.
4.27
Additionally, the authors of submission 43 reported that the IRI ranked 143 of 146 on the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index 2022 and ‘has a long history of suppressing women’s rights and avoiding gender equality and empowerment’.
4.28
Mr Ek Taghdir, a barrister, outlined his position on the IRI’s membership on the CSW, stating:
In light of their gross violation of human rights towards Iranian women, girls and their allies, the following points should be overserved:
(a)
any input by [the IRI] is simply nonsensical as their actions clearly do not “accelerate progress and promote women’s rights in political, economic, and social fields” and;
(b)
their continued membership undermines the legitimacy of such an important Commission when it is the “principal global intergovernmental body exclusively dedicated to the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women.”
The death in custody of Mahsa Amini, and the brutal measures taken by the Iranian regime against protesters, especially women and girl protesters, are the most recent manifestations of decades of systemic repression of women in Iran ... This record is utterly repugnant to the objects for which the CSW was established. Under its current regime, Iran’s membership … has made a mockery of the CSW’s mandate of promoting gender equality and women’s dignity, and is a standing insult to women everywhere.
4.30
Professor Saul raised the point that whilst the CSW is dedicated to advancing the rights of women ‘it is well understood that it is an inter-governmental diplomatic/political body which is not a “club of the virtuous” – a test many states would fail to meet if the protection of women’s rights was a precondition of membership’. Despite this, he explained whilst:
There is value in engaging with all states from ‘inside the tent’, to encourage and pressure them to comply with their human rights obligations … in exceptional situations of grave violations, where a state is not responsive to improving its compliance, the limit of engagement may be reached and more pointed ostracism may be justified, to bring additional pressure to bear. Iran is arguably at this point.
The election of the IRI to the CSW
4.31
How the IRI came to be a member of the CSW was discussed at the hearings held on 28 November and 21 December 2022. DFAT explained that:
Iran was elected to the commission in April 2021. It was uncontested and endorsed by the Asia-Pacific group—ECOSOC is, as much of the UN system is, broken into regional groups. They nominated, and it wasn't contested. There weren't more Asia-Pacific states nominating than there were spots. That's how they came to be a member of CSW.
4.32
Mr Hillel Neuer, Executive Director of UN Watch, noted that there were
15 Western and European Union (EU) members of ECOSOC, including Australia, at the time that the IRI was elected to the CSW. He explained that ‘[o]nly 11 did not vote for Iran because 43 out of 54 members voted for Iran. That means a minimum of four Western and EU states necessarily voted the Islamic republic into the women's rights commission’. Mr Neuer called for transparency about how Australia voted, stating ‘[w]e trust that Australia did not vote for the Islamic republic, but we call on them to reveal how they voted’.
4.33
Mr Neuer acknowledged:
Governments typically say, ‘We can't reveal a secret ballot’, but the Canadian ambassador, Bob Rae, a few days after the election revealed that Canada did not vote for Iran. Similarly, when Saudi Arabia was likewise elected several years prior in 2017, the Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel appeared before the Belgian parliament and revealed that he did vote for Saudi Arabia.
4.34
When asked about the vote, DFAT stated that ‘the elections are conducted under a secret ballot, and by convention we don't talk about who we vote for in those fora’.
The decision to remove the IRI from the CSW
4.35
On 14 December 2022, ECOSOC member states voted on a US-drafted resolution to remove the IRI from the CSW with immediate effect for the remainder of its four-year term ending in 2026, citing its oppression of women and girls. The vote recorded 29 in favour, eight against, and 16 abstentions. The vote was the first time in the UN’s history that a country was expelled from the CSW.
4.36
In a letter to ECOSOC ahead of the vote, the IRI’s UN Ambassador, Mr Amir Saeid Iravani, described the move as illegal and ‘based solely on false allegations and fabricated assumptions’. Speaking before the vote, the representative of the IRI stated:
… to remove an elected member from the Commission contravenes the spirit of the Charter of the United Nations, notably its basic notion of sovereign equality of States in membership with equal participation in all multilateral forums, which has been recognized as the main pillar of multilateralism … This illegal conduct might also create a dangerous precedent with far‑reaching consequences.
4.37
DFAT noted that whilst Australia was not able to vote to remove the IRI from the CSW, as it is not currently a member of ECOSOC, it did not stop Australia supporting the US-initiative by:
… co-sponsoring the resolution, conducting outreach to advocate that others vote for the resolution and … delivering a national statement, when the resolution was passed, condemning Iran's persecution of women and girls.
4.38
The response to the removal of the IRI from the CSW has been widely welcomed. This is unsurprising given that a large number of early submissions to the inquiry called for this action to be taken prior to ECOSOC’s resolution.
4.39
On the other hand, Professor Saul noted that he believed Australia should be consistent in its approach in seeking to exclude other states from the CSW on similar grounds, giving the example that both Afghanistan and Somalia are also current members.
4.40
Some commentators have also noted that whilst it is a positive step, there is more that needs to be done. Mr Louis Charbonneau, UN director at Human Rights Watch, stated:
The removal of Iran from the UN Commission on the Status of Women is a welcome step toward holding the Iranian leadership accountable for its long history of discrimination and cruelty towards women and girls. But today’s justified action by U.N. member countries is a far cry from real accountability for those responsible for the security forces’ lethal violence against protesters after the death of Mahsa Amini … What’s needed is urgent coordinated pressure on Iran to end its campaign of violence, credible prosecutions of individuals who are directly responsible for these appalling violations of human rights, and an end to the severe discrimination against women.
Committee view
4.41
The committee agrees with the assessment of the majority of members at ECOSOC 14 December 2022, that the IRI regime is not fit to be represented on the CSW. The committee supports the decision to remove the IRI from the CSW. The committee is unconvinced by assumptions that including regimes which systematically and deliberately oppress women and girls, such as the IRI, motivates those regimes to improve their treatment of women and minorities. These assumptions have been proven wrong by recent events in Iran. Clearly, election to the CSW had no positive impact on the IRI’s treatment of women.
4.42
The committee recommends that the Australian Government oppose the election of the Islamic Republic of Iran to any United Nations’ bodies in light of the regime’s clear disregard for human rights, particularly the rights of women and girls.
Targeted sanctions
4.43
There has been discussion internationally about what actions nation states could make in response to the human rights abuses occurring in Iran. In particular, there is broad agreement that targeted, or Magnitsky-style, sanctions aimed at individuals and entities responsible for human rights abuses and violations of international law, is the most appropriate form of sanctions to apply.
4.44
At the same time, there has been limited appetite to pursue broad-based sanctions which could punish the Iranian population for the actions of the IRI regime. The committee shares this view.
4.45
Like-minded countries such as the US, United Kingdom (UK) and Canada have implemented a range of targeted sanctions since September 2022. DFAT summarised these, as at 4 January 2023:
the US has imposed sanctions on at least 45 Iranian individuals and
5 Iranian entities;
Canada has sanctioned at least 84 Iranian individuals and 19 Iranian entities; and
the United Kingdom has sanctioned at least 41 Iranian individuals and
1 Iranian entity.
4.46
Further discussion about the application of Magnitsky-style sanctions in response to the IRI’s human rights abuses and Australia’s use of targeted sanctions is discussed in Chapter 6.
Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action
4.47
There has been international discussion and speculation about the status of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), as well as the impact that the IRI’s recent behaviour may have on future negotiations of any actions taken by the international community in relation to the IRI’s nuclear program.
4.48
The JCPOA is a nuclear agreement reached by the IRI and China, France, Germany, Russia, the UK, and the US on 14 July 2015. This nuclear deal was endorsed by UN Security Council Resolution 2231 and adopted on 20 July 2015. The IRI’s compliance with the nuclear-related provisions of the JCPOA is verified by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), according to certain requirements set forth in the agreement.
4.49
Under the terms of the agreement, the IRI agreed to dismantle much of its nuclear program with the aim of ensuring its program is exclusively peaceful and open itself to international compliance mechanisms in exchange for the EU, UN and US lifting their nuclear-related sanctions on the IRI.
4.50
On 8 May 2018, the former President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, announced the withdrawal of the US from the JCPOA and the re-imposing of sanctions lifted under the deal. Despite the US’s withdrawal, the remaining participants of the JCPOA stressed that the UN Security Council resolution 2231 remained fully in force. Since April 2021, the JCPOA coordinator has been leading diplomatic talks in Vienna to negotiate the return of the US to the JCPOA.
4.51
At the committee’s hearing, DFAT noted the ongoing discussions that have been occurring in Vienna about reviving the JCPOA, and Australia’s hope, whilst not a signatory to the JCPOA, that some sort of agreement could be reached to restrain the IRI’s nuclear program and put it on a path of peaceful energy. DFAT acknowledged, however, that there had not been much progress on those negotiations recently.
4.52
On 17 January 2023, the US made clear that the JCPOA is now off the table:
With regard to the JCPOA, the Iranians killed the opportunity to come back to that agreement swiftly many months ago. There was an opportunity on the table that they rejected, an opportunity that was approved by all who were involved – the Europeans, the United States, Russia and China even at the time. And so the JCPOA has not been on the agenda as a practical matter for many months now. It’s not our focus. We’re focused on what’s happening in Iran. We’re focused on what Iran is doing in terms of the provision of weapons to Russia to use against innocent people and the entire energy grid in Ukraine. And of course, we’re focused on its other destabilizing activities throughout the region.
4.53
Submitters indicated that negotiations on the JCPOA should cease in reflection of the IRI’s disregard for human rights, and thus preventing the release of billions of dollars of frozen assets by lifting sanctions through the deal.
4.54
One submission, for example, recommended that the Australian Government work with the international community to place the Iran nuclear negotiations on hold, stating:
We support calls by the Centre for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) to place the Iran nuclear negotiations on hold and agree with their position, which argues that the Iran nuclear deal cannot be isolated from recent events and a deal with IRI at this time will likely result in a significant release of funds, thereby increasing the repressive capacity of the state and likely lead to even more egregious human rights violations.
4.55
Similarly, another submitter noted:
Signing a nuclear deal would result in the release of billions in dollars of seized assets and money being returned to the IR regime, which would directly result in renewed funding for terrorism in the middle-east, cyber-attacks on Australia, surveillance of Australian citizens and brutality against the Iranian people. None of the released money will go to the Iranian people. Noting that “Hezbollah’s entire budget … comes from the Islamic Republic of Iran”, estimated at more than US $700 million annually.
4.56
The Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) added that:
Coupled with qualitative Iranian nuclear advances, obstruction of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors and activities and the regime's stonewalling of negotiations to bring it back into compliance with the JCPOA for over a year, these threats and actions should lead to a significant expansion of sanctions on the regime.
4.57
When asked whether Australia’s position had changed on the JCPOA given the actions of the IRI over the last few months, DFAT stated that its position to support the objectives of the deal and its contribution to nuclear counterproliferation had not changed.
Committee view
4.58
The committee notes the frustration evident in a number of submissions at the attempts by segments of the international community to continue negotiations on the JCPOA with the IRI. However, it is evident from the IRI’s most recent actions that it cannot be trusted to negotiate or act in good faith, or deliver on any promises it makes.