Iran: Objectives and Activities

General Objectives

  • Actively promote an open dialogue on human rights between the European Union and the Islamic Republic of Iran, taking into account Iran's unique political and cultural context.
  • Actively promote an exchange of ideas and academic works between European and Iranian scholars and academic institutions.
  • Improve knowledge and raise awareness in Iran regarding key international human rights instruments, with the overall aim of encouraging signature, ratification and implementation of such instruments, while at the same time raise awareness among non-Islamic legal practitioners with regards to human rights understanding in Iranian law.
  • Establish and strengthen networks of lawyers, academics and non-governmental organisations.

Project Activities

1 Preparation of a Human Rights Manual

The manual is a practical guide for lawyers, judges and other human rights defenders. It presents both the international and Iranian human rights systems, and examines more in detail several individual rights and groups particularly exposed to human rights violations. International and domestic case law is also included, together with a suggested bibliography for further reading.

2 Compare Experiences from other Muslim Countries

Researchers in London study the policies of other Muslim countries, not only those with a Shi'a presence, like Iran, but also those with a Sunni presence, regarding the signature and ratification of key human rights instruments, with a view to identifying any patterns followed by Islamic countries in pending declarations, understandings and reservations. The focus will then be placed on specific countries in order to conduct an in depth analysis of certain issues. A comparison will follow of their practices with those of Iran and the conclusions of the study will be presented and discussed at a colloquium with governmental and non-governmental legal experts.

For more information on this activity please contact Dr Nisrine Abiad.

3 Develop Electronic Resources

The project website offers a summary of the project. During the third year of the project, the various research products will be uploaded and made accessible to the public. Also, a database of European legal experts and NGOs specialising on human rights issues has been designed to form a network of contacts from academia, governmental and non-governmental institutions, and from other sectors of the legal profession in general.

4 Training and Workshops

The purpose of this activity is to inform and train the target groups (lawyers, judges, academics, NGOs, legal professionals in general and other human rights defenders) on the international human rights concepts and instruments. More specifically, the objectives of the workshops are to:

  • train lawyers and academics and develop their skills as advocates of human rights;
  • alert the judiciary about legal developments in human rights;
  • train prison officers and policemen against torture practices and human rights abuses in detention;
  • train human rights educators and NGO managers.

Training will be given by selected EU and Iranian experts, such as the International Bar Association, the Bar Human Rights Committee, legal scholars lecturing at Iranian universities and the Iranian Bar Associations Union.

5 Media Monitoring

A methodology has been devised to monitor how the same news stories on human rights are being treated by the local media in Iran and by the international media. The objective is to identify and analyse any disparities, or differential treatment in reporting and thus to gain an overall picture of the way in which human rights abuses are reported in Iran and in the countries being monitored. A number of rapporteurs are working from their home countries (UK, the U.S., France, Canada, Germany, Austria, Italy, Poland, the Russian Federation, Spain, Australia, the Netherlands and Turkey) and writing monthly reports, which will be then analysed over a period of approximately three months.

The reports are available here.

For more information on this activity please contact Victor Kattan.

6 Introduce Basic Human Rights Concepts in the Legal System

In 2008, the results of the project will be discussed by experts in international and Islamic law. On the basis of the results, it is hoped that during the colloquium suggestions be made for the implementation of human rights standards agreed by the international community at the domestic level in Iran. It is also envisaged to promote discussions on the reservations placed by Iran upon ratification of various international human rights instruments.