Reflections on the Failure of the International Community Regarding Protests in Iran

[Parisa Zangeneh recently passed her PhD viva at the Irish Centre for Human Rights, where her work was supported by the Hardiman Scholarship]

In recent weeks, the leadership of the Islamic Republic of Iran has engaged in an unlawful use of violence by attacking protesters en masse. According to the Guardian, at least 30,000 people have died, and the bodies of the many of the victims have disappeared. The victims include people of all ages, ranging from children to the elderly, in what has become a veritable bloodbath on the streets of Tehran and in cities across the country. What was their crime? Their crime was exercising the right to protest peacefully and the right to freedom of expression. Their crime was to express the view that they would like the establishment of a democratic government, regime change, and their basic rights to be respected. As the world has watched, tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets of Iran to protest the cruelty of the Islamic Republic, while the international community has issued empty statements supporting the protesters. President Donald Trump has imposed a tariff of 25% on countries that continue to maintain business ties to Iran, but this intervention is not enough in my view. We are staring down the barrel of a gun, and the trigger has been pulled. There is an undying risk of the trigger being pulled again.

Despite President Trump’s promises that help is on the way, the international community has attacked the murderers of the Iranian government with a paper tiger. In January, the United States government called for an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council. During the January 15th meeting, international diplomats, including representatives of the United States, Iran, the United Kingdom, and other nations, sparred. The United States and the United Kingdom stated that they deplored the profound human rights abuses occurring in Iran. As usual, the Iranian government attacked the legitimacy of its opponents using bombastic rhetoric and pointing to the human rights failures of the United States government, while deflecting responsibility for its own campaign of mass murder behind the veil of anti-imperialist rhetoric. Nothing of value came of the meeting, other than the representatives of powerful nations trading barbs in the world’s most respected international town hall. The UN Security Council failed to issue a resolution or a call for any type of intervention.

The international community, specifically the United Nations, has lost the most valuable opportunity it has had since the 1979 Revolution to intervene to relieve the human rights situation in Iran by at least a symbolic intervention or attempt at international justice. It is undeniable that for fundamental transformation to come to Iran, the government must change, or the preconditions must be set for the establishment of a democratic government in Iran, a reality that many Iranians, including those in the diaspora, have dreamed of for decades. The Security Council has wasted another opportunity: the opportunity to make a referral to the International Criminal Court (ICC) under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter for the mass slaughter of protesters and torture of people in Iranian prisons, which fall under the Court’s jurisdiction, most specifically crimes against humanity. Iran is not a State Party to the ICC. It has not ratified the Rome Statute, the ICC’s founding instrument. However, in such cases, the Security Council has the power to refer situations of mass atrocity to the ICC under the Council’s jurisdiction under Chapter VII.

With reports from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and other NGOs estimating that thousands have died, that torture is rampant in Iranian prisons, and that mass executions may be on the horizon, the international community should act. According to the BBC, at least 50,000 reports people have been arrested. Trump promised that help was on the way, a promise relied on by individuals such as Siavash Shirzad, a protester who went out into the streets in the hope of support from Trump. That hope cost Shirzad his life. The circumstances in Iran are not normal. This is a case of mass slaughter and mass casualties, and we are in the midst of an internet shutdown. The Islamic Republic has created a situation in which it is acting behind closed doors while the world cannot watch.  The gloves have come off, and there is no one to come to the rescue. 

However, all hope is not lost. The current moment still presents the international community with an opportunity. Under the leadership of Secretary-General Antonio Gutierrez, the United Nations has taken a more moderate stance. The Spokesman for the Secretary-General, Stéphane Dujarric, has expressed support for the protesters while refraining from supporting military intervention. But the people who are going to suffer the most are the protesters, as they have consistently sought support from the international community, while the international community has consistently betrayed and abandoned them. This is most telling in the videos and photographs of the body bags that have been circulating on social media and in journalistic outlets. The protesters who died cannot get their lives back, and all the restraint that has been encouraged by the international community has failed to protect these shining stars, the very hope of the future, the best their nation had to offer.

At the very least, the Security Council could refer the situation in Iran to the ICC. However, this possibility was not raised during the emergency session. The meeting failed to consider steps that the United Nations and the ICC could take concerning holding those responsible for these atrocities accountable in the existing framework of international criminal law. The ICC and Chapter VII referrals exist for a reason. The Security Council has referred situations to the ICC in 2005 regarding the situation in Sudan and in 2011 regarding the situation in Libya. Even if the Security Council were blocked by states such as Russia and/or China, such action would be highly symbolic and a gesture of support for the protesters. It would have also cast shame on the leadership of Iran, and in this case, shaming the government officials would be more than justified. Had the United States and its allies explored this option, at least they could say that they tried. Iranians in Iran – and Iranians in the diasporic community – deserve so much better.

The situation in Iran is dire, but the recent atrocities committed by the Islamic Republic are not unprecedented in scale. In 1988, the current regime perpetrated a massacre of political prisoners, an act that has gone largely unpunished, with the exception of the prosecution of the Hamid Nouri in Sweden. The 1988 political prisoner massacre is a blight on the bloody history of the Islamic Republic, but it is also a mark of perpetual shame on the international community, which has largely been silent on this issue for decades. On November 19^th, 2025, the Third Committee of the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution on the human rights situation in Iran. The resolution mentioned the 1988 massacre once in paragraph 29. While the 1988 political prisoner massacre is outside of the ICC’s temporal jurisdiction, it is not too late to learn from the horrific precedent set by the massacre and the lack of response from the international community. From a moral perspective, it is inexplicable that the human rights situation in Iran would not warrant attention and international action on par with the situation in the former Yugoslavia or Rwanda in the 1990s. The present moment is ripe for a UN Security Council referral to the ICC. While it is possible that certain members of the Permanent Five might attempt to block such a referral, there is no harm in trying. At the moment, there does not appear to be any attempt in international diplomatic action to endeavor to support such a move. Indeed, there is no guarantee that an attempt to make a referral would be successful. Nor is there a guarantee that it would fail.

If such a measure were taken, the results would be of great significance for the Iranian people. A referral from the Council to the ICC would be not only a powerful statement in favor of international justice, it would be a hugely symbolic show of support for the protesters and their families. It would also be a welcome recognition of the Iranian government’s horrific patterns of abuse, and potentially, an implicit condemnation of the 1988 political prisoner massacre. It is also important to recognize that a UN Security Council referral would not be a sufficient response, no matter how timely. With the exception of Nouri and deceased President Ibrahim Raisi, the leaders of the Iranian government, who have been reported as linked to the 1988 massacre, are largely living with impunity and without international accountability. Obviously, this is unacceptable and raises the perennial concerns about the limitations of the international justice system. 

The possibility of a Chapter VII referral to the ICC should be put on the agenda of the Security Council. Otherwise, the lack of swift and decisive action on the part of the international community, not least the United States, has been a disgrace. Again, the United States and powerful states have not followed through on what is a clear responsibility to protect civilians in the exercise of their fundamental rights, but also in the sense that their bodily integrity and their lives should never be violated. We have failed the protesters and the people of Iran. Shame on us.