A plume of black smoke rises above Fujairah, United Arab Emirates, on March 3 following an explosion caused by an Iranian strike.FADEL SENNA/AFP/Getty Images
Irwin Cotler is a former minister of justice and attorney-general of Canada and founder of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights.
Brandon Silver is an international human rights lawyer and director of policy and projects at the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights.
Iran is committing war crimes and crimes against humanity. Canada can help hold them to account.
As we write, Iranian missiles are directly and deliberately striking civilian targets across the Middle East. Hotels and airports in Dubai are in flames, Israeli residential communities and religious sites are in ruins, and the risk of an environmental crisis rises as Iran bombs oilfields and refineries. Even neutral mediator Oman hasn’t been spared from Iran’s attacks.
Law enforcement in Canada and elsewhere are actively working to mitigate terror and transnational repression attempts by Iran and its proxies. Last July, Canada and 13 allies had condemned “attempts of Iranian intelligence services to kill, kidnap, and harass people in Europe and North America in clear violation of our sovereignty.” The Canadian Security Intelligence Service foiled lethal threats by Iran, including an assassination plot targeting this article’s co-author.
But the biggest victims of the regime’s brutality have been the brave Iranian people.
Opinion: Will Iran ever be free?
Three separate UN bodies have independently determined that Iran is committing crimes against humanity against its own citizens. The UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Islamic Republic of Iran reviewed 38,000 pieces of evidence and interviewed nearly 300 witnesses, determining that Iran continues to violently abuse the rights of women and girls and others advocating for human rights. Children as young as seven years old were confirmed to be victims.
The UN Special Rapporteur on Iran reached the same conclusion, describing the regime’s crimes as some of the worst in its repressive history.
The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, in the case of a Canadian-Iranian hostage – we served as legal counsel – found that Iran’s state policy and practice of taking foreign and dual nationals hostage may constitute crimes against humanity.
These are international crimes that call for international legal accountability.
Canada can mobilize middle powers to use law and diplomacy to hold the regime to account, support the people of Iran, and protect our sovereignty. This would also advance our interests of upholding and strengthening international law by putting its principles into practice.
The co-ordinated economic and legal levers that have been used to support Ukraine, constrain Russia and hold it accountable for atrocities against Ukrainians could equally apply to Iran.
Joint law enforcement and investigation teams between countries should be established to hold perpetrators to account. Sanctions should be expanded and more effectively enforced, with the formation of a country-specific co-ordination mechanism amongst like-minded countries. Canada should encourage allies such as Britain to join us in designating Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist entity.
Political prisoners and foreign hostages held in Iran’s prisons are facing heightened risk. Their cases and causes should be championed publicly, prominently and persistently. Such solidarity would offer those arbitrarily detained the protective cover of a public spotlight, highlight their brave struggle and the shared values that underpin it, and add pressure to the regime.
The RCMP has a dedicated investigative mechanism they could use to collect evidence of crimes against humanity committed by the regime in Iran, whether for taking Canadians hostage, or the mass murders of protesters, which included at least one Canadian. There are many witnesses in Canada who are desperate to submit evidence, which the RCMP can use to advance investigations at home or abroad. The announcement of such a structural investigation into crimes against humanity affecting Canadians would send a powerful deterrent message to perpetrators and discourage them from seeking haven in Canada.
The transnational repression carried out by Iran should also be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. The widespread and systematic nature of this transnational repression against civilian populations as part of Iran’s state policy likely constitutes crimes against humanity under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC). Canada should lead in building a co-ordinated legal strategy, and alongside allies refer the case to the ICC. This would help hold Iran regime officials criminally accountable for targeting our citizens on our soil, and create important international legal precedents to help deter and combat transnational repression more broadly.
Canada can also advance international justice efforts for Iran’s atrocities in the current war. Jordan is a member of the ICC, and has condemned the war crimes committed on its territory by Iran as “a blatant breach of the rules of international law.” Canada could encourage Jordan to refer those crimes to the ICC and offer Jordan investigative and legal support in this endeavour.
Prime Minister Mark Carney has said that “Canada is actively taking on the world as it is, not passively waiting for a world we wish to be.” Canada can do more than issue statements supporting international law and lamenting the collapse of the international order. We can exercise leadership by actively supporting international law and institutions through economic, diplomatic, and legal action on behalf of suffering civilians being targeted by Iran. When history looks back on these pivotal moments for Canada and the world, we will be measured not by what we said, but by what we did. And Canada can be doing so much more.