Since the ICC does not have jurisdiction over war crimes committed on Iranian territory, human rights organizations and advocates have implored Tehran to grant the court jurisdiction, Jake Johnson reports.
International Criminal Court at The Hague in the Netherlands. (Vysotsky, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0)
By Jake Johnson
Common Dreams
The head of the Iranian Red Crescent Society says his organization has submitted evidence of U.S. and Israeli war crimes to the International Criminal Court and other global bodies, seeking accountability for massive attacks on civilian infrastructure and other violations.
“The ICC prosecutor announced that the documents provided by the IRCS are accepted as official evidence,” said Pir-Hossein Koulivand, the head of the Iranian Red Crescent Society. “All cases of attacks on civilians are being legally pursued based on the Geneva Conventions.”
The IRCS estimates that U.S. and Israeli airstrikes have destroyed more than 132,000 civilian structures throughout Iran, including hospitals, apartment buildings, universities, research facilities, and bridges.
U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to destroy all of Iran’s bridges and power plants if the country’s leadership does not succumb to his administration’s demands in negotiations to end the war.
Luis Moreno Ocampo, the founding chief prosecutor of the ICC, said earlier this month that Trump could be indicted if he follows through on his threats.
“My suggestion: You read the indictment of the Russians, change the name, and it is very similar,” said Ocampo, referring to ICC arrest warrants issued against senior Russian officials in 2024 for alleged war crimes in Ukraine.
In a series of social media posts on Saturday, the IRCS provided video footage and photographic evidence of what the group described as war crimes committed by the U.S. and Israeli militaries.
“Among the most bitter war crimes of America and Israel in Iran is the attack on the home of 19-month-old Helma in Tabriz, in which four members of her family were martyred,” the IRCS wrote Saturday. “The only survivor of this family is Helma.”
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The ICC is tasked with investigating and prosecuting individuals for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and other grave violations of international law. Iran is not currently a party to the Rome Statute, which established the ICC — so the court does not have jurisdiction over war crimes committed on Iranian territory.
Human rights organizations and advocates have implored Iran to grant the ICC jurisdiction to pursue justice for war crimes committed during the illegal U.S.-Israeli assault that began on Feb. 28. On the first day of the war, the U.S. bombed an elementary school in southern Iran.
“From the killing of over 150 students and teachers to strikes on hospitals full of newborns, every day more and more evidence emerges pointing to the commission of grave war crimes in Iran since the start of the war,” said Omar Shakir, executive director of DAWN. “Victims deserve justice. The mechanisms exist, and the US has no veto over them.”
Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch, wrote earlier this month that “the Iranian government could join the court now and grant it retroactive jurisdiction, similar to what Ukraine did to allow prosecution of Russian war crimes.”
Last month, the IRCS formally requested that the ICC initiate “an investigation into war crimes arising from attacks by the United States of America and the Israeli regime against civilian objects.”
“According to field reports from relief workers, operational documentation, and data recorded by the Iranian Red Crescent Society, a wide range of residential areas, medical facilities, schools, humanitarian facilities, vital urban infrastructure, and public places were directly or indiscriminately targeted during the recent military attacks,” the group wrote in a letter to the ICC’s top prosecutor.
Jake Johnson is a senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams.
This article is from Common Dreams.
Views expressed in this article and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
