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)
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.
“I want to say something about the human cost here because I think it is important not to lose sight of this in the geopolitical analysis. Over 3,300 Iranians were killed in this conflict.
“Among them were 168 young girls.
“Scientists were killed alongside their families. Military commanders were killed alongside their families. The Americans and the Israelis struck civilian infrastructure. They struck populated areas. They used a kind of firepower that is designed to maximize destruction. Now look at the other side.
“Iran fired thousands of missiles and drones at the military and energy infrastructure of these Gulf states that facilitated the attacks on Iran. And the total number of civilian casualties in Kuwait, the Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar combined is fewer than 20 people. Fewer than 20. You can go and verify this yourself. This is not Iranian television telling you this.
“Look it up on any search engine. The disparity in civilian casualties tells you something very important about how these two sides are conducting this conflict. Now, I need to talk about what comes next because this is why this matters to everyone watching this video, not just to people in the region…
( … )
“What I hope is that there are people in the American system, in the State Department, perhaps in the military establishment, perhaps even in the White House who understand the real situation on the ground and who are telling the president this path does not lead where you think it leads.
“Because the alternative to diplomacy here is not a quick military victory. The alternative is a longer conflict with unpredictable escalation, a global energy crisis that will hit the American economy hard and a strategic realignment in the Persian Gulf that will take a generation to undo.
“The world is watching. The people of Iran are watching. The people of the region are watching. And they are all wondering whether the United States is capable of making a rational decision when the pressure is on. I genuinely do not know the answer to that question, but I know that the next few days will tell us a great deal about where this situation is heading.
“And I hope sincerely that cooler heads prevail because the alternative is something that nobody who has seen war up close, nobody who has survived a chemical attack, nobody who has watched families buried under rubble, would ever wish for anyone.”
– Iranian Professor Seyed Marandi
But the US has refused to sign the Treaty of Rome, refusing to accept ICC jurisdiction.
So even if the ICC has the evidence, a conviction would not affect the US.
Probably it would refuse the case unless against signatories.
The article states that an HRW former director noted that “the Iranian government could join the court now and grant it retroactive jurisdiction.” But this could subject it to ICC jurisdiction against its interests in defense against US and Iraeli aggression.
Washington DC is, in simple terms, the world’s wrecking ball. The politicians operating the wrecking ball change every few years, but the effect is the same. The current operators are Trump and Hegseth, but they are little different than Bush Jr, Cheney, Powell, Obama, Biden, Blinken, Sullivan, Nuland and many others.
The media and the people in general must pay far more attention to those from behind the scenes, pulling the puppet strings.
Getting distracted and fooled by the actors will allow those truly responsible to hide their evil business behind the curtain.
These individuals(!) must be identified, exposed and held accountable.
Only the ‘liberal’, capitalist West could suggest to Iran that they give power within their country to a group of crooked kangaroos wearing silly wigs. The ICC is a joke. The ICC only seriously pursues the crimes of people the West has launched accusations towards. The ICC only seriously prosecutes the West’s Enemies List.
Now that Iran has gotten the crooked IAEA out, why on earth would they invite a crooked ICC in? Whose Dream is this? As it sounds a lot like Donald Trump’s Dream?
IMO the ICC is a corrupt organisation that primarily imposes the western agenda on non western states. I would suggest that Iran should not let this corrupt organisation have any jurisdiction over it, as you can guarantee that would backfire on Iran.
Let’s wait and see some real action from the ICC against the USA and Israel before it’s trusted anywhere else.
I would just mention the hypocrisy of charging Russian officials with war crimes while leaving the Banderist brigades off the hook for their atrocities against ethnic Russians. The court is unfortunately stacked with judges who clearly hold a Western imperialist bias.