Extrajudicial Assassination Under International Law: The Case of Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou

                     Dr. Ghassemlou's Assassination: A Case for Taking International Legal Action

Soraya Fallah and Cklara Moradian

Abstract

This paper examines the 1989 assassination of Dr. Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou, leader of the Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI), and explores the international legal avenues available for seeking justice for this and similar extrajudicial killings carried out by the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI). Drawing on international human rights law, the authors analyze the limitations and possibilities of institutions such as the International Criminal Court (ICC), the International Court of Justice (ICJ), and the principle of universal jurisdiction. The paper argues that impunity for the IRI's crimes is not merely a Kurdish issue but an international threat that demands coordinated legal and diplomatic responses.

Keywords: Ghassemlou, Kurdish rights, international criminal law, ICC, extrajudicial assassination, Islamic Republic of Iran, universal jurisdiction, crimes against humanity

Dr. Ghassemlou's Assassination: A Case for Taking International Legal Action

Dr. Ghassemlou was assassinated before he could achieve his political goals. He believed in nonviolence, human rights, and the advancement of all oppressed nations in Iran.

His untimely death and the subsequent leadership vacuum were followed by a brutal campaign by the Iranian government. History has shown that his murder set the Kurdish people back significantly. The democratic process and the goal of autonomy also suffered setbacks.

In June 1989, following the death of Ayatollah Khomeini, the KDPI was informed that the Islamic Republic of Iran was willing to resume negotiations and find a speedy resolution to the Kurdish situation. Dr. Ghassemlou accepted this offer without conditions. He even agreed to change his preferred meeting location from Paris to Vienna. He did not suspect the Iranian agents of deception in their choice of country. In fact, Dr. Ghassemlou and Abdollah Ghaderi-Azar attended the negotiations without taking any security precautions. He was executed while planning for a peaceful solution to securing Kurdish rights in Iran.

Perhaps his willingness to meet the Iranian agents under such suspicious and unsafe conditions stemmed from his trust in the goodness of all people and his conviction that diplomacy holds hope. He was so committed to the belief that human beings could negotiate face-to-face rather than resort to violence that he was blinded to the brutality and faithlessness of the Iranian government. He wanted a peaceful solution to the Kurdish suffering so deeply that he jeopardized his own safety. He was ahead of his time and ahead of most traditional leaders in the region. He had a democratic and humanistic vision, and this perhaps made him vulnerable to the cold-blooded acts of the Iranian government. There is no way to know where the Kurdish people would be had he not been killed—how much further ahead or how much more free they might have been. It is clear, however, that his spirit lives on in every person who advocates for human rights and dignity.

Due to the availability of the expertise of  Carol Prunhuber and her extensive knowledge of the life and untimely murder of Dr. Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou, we have chosen to omit a biographical summary of his life from this paper. In the interest of brevity, we have also omitted a retelling of the events of July 13, 1989. Instead, this paper focuses on legal issues relevant to his assassination that are also applicable to other gross human rights crimes committed by the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Part One: Signed but Ignored , Meaningless Signatures and Non-Adherence

Contrary to popular belief, the Islamic Republic of Iran is not a signatory to the most important United Nations conventions, including the non-binding declaration known as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). In 1948, when the declaration was adopted, Iran voted in favor of its passage. Subsequently, on June 24, 1975, Iran signed the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights—the legally binding agreement based on the UDHR. However, these treaties were ratified prior to the 1979 revolution. According to the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights, Iran has ratified only five international humanitarian law and human rights treaties since the revolution and has made significant reservations to a number of them. For example, the Islamic Republic of Iran has included the following reservation before ratifying binding documents:

The Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran reserves the right not to apply any provisions or articles of the Convention that are incompatible with Islamic Laws and the international legislation in effect.

Records of atrocities carried out in Iran under the name of Islamic law demonstrate that this statement means, in practice, that the Islamic Republic of Iran may choose not to abide by international laws as it sees fit. In 1982, Iranian representative to the United Nations Said Rajaie-Khorassani stated that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was "a secular understanding of the Judeo-Christian tradition" that could not be implemented by Muslims without violating Islamic law. This statement effectively signals that the current Iranian leadership considers international treaties signed before the revolution to be null.

As noted by the Right to Education Project:

The international legal system has the state at its centre: the state ratifies treaties and thereby obliges itself to respect, protect, and fulfill certain human rights. And it is the state that must report on its own implementation and who can be "named and shamed" in public for not doing so. Treaties specify mechanisms for how the international community can hold the state to account, frequently through exerting pressure from above, and therefore such mechanisms can be very powerful. However, they can also become overtly politicized at the UN or regional fora. It is the challenge of campaigners and the courts to place this power in the hands of those whose rights have been violated by the state.

Simply put, international conventions, whether signed, ratified, or abstained from, have little practical value when the state chooses not to abide by these international mechanisms.

What is the solution, then? How are international laws enforced, and by whom? Does this mean that the IRI can continue to carry out atrocious crimes with impunity and without scrutiny from the international community?

Part Two: Conviction in the Face of Limitations

There are several possible international institutions to which Kurds can and should appeal in order to seek justice for Ghassemlou's execution and other such criminal acts. Even if a tangible resolution is not achieved, a trial is necessary to prevent these crimes from occurring in obscurity. Despite statutes of limitations for retroactive wrongs and the shortcomings of international jurisdiction in prosecuting extrajudicial assassinations, it is important to note that, if argued effectively, human rights standards and international common law can be used to seek legal redress.

Theoretically and philosophically, the limits of international law are enormous. In practice, geopolitical interests, economic ties, and strategic alliances make reaching justice difficult, if not outright impossible. With that in mind, it is critically important for Kurdish leadership, scholars, advocates, activists, lawmakers, researchers, and students to persistently pursue, push, and demand legal avenues for investigating, documenting, and prosecuting those responsible for the murder of Dr. Ghassemlou.

Possible Avenues for International Legal Action

Many Kurdish people have wondered whether the crimes committed by the Islamic Republic of Iran can be prosecuted by the highest courts of international law. The following explores this question with full awareness of the challenges posed by these international bodies.

International Criminal Court (ICC) (1998 Rome Statute)

The ICC, an international criminal court, began operations in 2002 with a mandate to try cases involving war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.

Unfortunately, extrajudicial assassinations or state-sanctioned targeted attacks are not currently categorized as "war crimes, crimes against humanity, and/or genocide." Advocates must argue that Dr. Ghassemlou's assassination—along with hundreds of other murders, executions, disappearances, rapes, and discriminatory acts—constitutes part of a systematic, deliberate, and premeditated campaign against the Kurdish population. According to the ICC, crimes against humanity encompass serious attacks on human dignity or grave humiliation of human beings. The 1998 Rome Statute requires that these acts be committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack (Article 7). The Islamic Republic of Iran may claim that it lacked "knowledge of the attack" and was unaware of its contribution to a widespread or systematic crime. For more information, see this analysis of ICC limitations.

A body of evidence, including eyewitness accounts, expert testimony, and documents presented by Amnesty International and other credible organizations—would be required to prove that the state intended to commit crimes against humanity.

The ICC is a court of last resort, created to prosecute only the most serious crimes; it does not oversee individual cases of repression, however significant. This is not a burden unique to Kurds but is shared by all dissidents from Iran. Organizations such as The Abdorrahman Boroumand Foundation are working to document the 1980s massacre of political prisoners as crimes against humanity by the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Dr. Abdolkarim Lahiji, vice president of the International Federation of Human Rights Leagues, has sought to bring an international case against the IRI since the creation of the Rome Statute. Dr. Lahiji worked extensively to document and investigate the assassination of Dr. Ghassemlou. A stronger case might be built by presenting the assassinations alongside other instances of aggression, demonstrating that the Iranian government has a systematic disregard for human dignity and the right to life.

The most significant challenge in bringing a criminal case before the ICC is its jurisdictional reach: the Court can only prosecute crimes committed within signatory nations or perpetrated by nationals of signatory nations. This means that unless the crimes against Kurds occurred in a country that is a signatory, such as the Netherlands, the Court would be unable to prosecute. Only a referral by the UN Security Council can extend ICC jurisdiction to non-signatory nations such as Iran. Convincing the Security Council to take such action is extremely difficult, given the politicized nature of its permanent membership.

According to a recent report by the UN Human Rights Council, the Council "took bold, assertive action to highlight Iran's deteriorating human rights situation by establishing a Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights Situation in Iran." This assertion has not yet resulted in any tangible condemnation of the Iranian government.

Despite increased diplomatic pressure on Iran, including sanctions, the IRI has refused to cooperate or allow inspections of state prisons. The politics of nuclear negotiations has complicated the international community's commitment to human rights.

Even if the Security Council were to refer a case against Iran to the ICC, there remains the issue of domestic versus international prosecution. The ICC "is intended to complement existing national judicial systems and can exercise its jurisdiction only if national courts are genuinely unwilling or unable to investigate or prosecute such crimes" (Article 17 of the 1998 Rome Statute). Advocates would have to demonstrate that Iran's judicial system is incapable of conducting an unbiased investigation, given that courts and judges in Iran function as extensions of the executive branch and operate under their interpretation of Sharia law.

The basis of most international law revolves around the notion of statehood and state rights. The Islamic Republic of Iran argues that it is acting within the state's imperative to suppress activity it perceives as threats to national security. Although this position is highly controversial, the burden of proof falls on the victims, members of a stateless people without protection or representation at the United Nations. Lack of statehood also prevents Kurds from bringing a case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The ICJ's mandate is to settle legal disputes submitted by states; since ethnic and religious communities are not recognized as nations, they do not benefit from ICJ protection.

Other avenues of international criminal prosecution include "ad hoc tribunals" such as the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. However, ad hoc tribunals are subject to statutes of limitation and therefore cannot prosecute retroactively. Although the ongoing low-intensity war against the Kurdish population in Iran is continuous, many of the most egregious acts were carried out within the first two decades of the Islamic Republic's existence. These acts should not go unpunished, and therefore a single ad hoc tribunal, for example, limited to crimes following the 2009 election, would be insufficient.

Two Other Possible Avenues for Justice

A. Universal Jurisdiction

Advocates can seek to bring a criminal case against the Islamic Republic of Iran before the domestic superior courts of countries that accept such cases. Although this is historically rare, there is precedent for this legal route. Courts in Spain have famously been involved in international cases. This is based on the principle of universal jurisdiction, which holds that any national court may exercise criminal jurisdiction over serious crimes against international law—such as crimes against humanity, war crimes, and torture, based on the premise that such crimes harm the international community as a whole. According to Amnesty International, since the end of World War II, more than 15 countries have exercised universal jurisdiction in investigations or prosecutions of persons suspected of crimes under international law.

Convincing a third-party country to take on a controversial case against the IRI in a domestic court is extremely difficult due to economic, political, and security concerns. Instead, advocates may need to make a strong case for including human rights demands as a bargaining chip in nuclear negotiations with Iran.

B. The Responsibility to Protect (R2P)

A relatively novel but increasingly prominent concept in international law is the Responsibility to Protect (R2P),a norm based on the idea that sovereignty is not a privilege but a responsibility. R2P focuses on preventing and halting four crimes: genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing, collectively referred to as "mass atrocity crimes." Although R2P is not itself a law, it provides a framework for employing existing tools,such as mediation, early warning mechanisms, economic sanctioning, and Chapter VII powers—to prevent mass atrocities.

Kurdish advocates can use these concepts to call for greater international scrutiny and pressure on the Islamic Republic of Iran, arguing that inaction will allow the continuation of an already dire situation for the Kurdish population—one that amounts to mass atrocity crimes. Since both concepts are criticized as infringements on state sovereignty, a very strong campaign would be needed to persuade the international community to act.

On a Final Note: Atrocity, Impunity, and Complicity — An International Collaboration

The leniency shown by the international community in the face of IRI crimes reflects the power of political and economic interests, which often override the demand for justice. As accurately noted by the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, "there is substantial evidence suggesting that the governments of several European states were negligent (if not reckless) in fulfilling their duty to provide 'effective remedy' following the murder of Iranian dissidents within their jurisdiction."

The evidence that Dr. Ghassemlou's murder was an unlawful execution carried out by members of the Iranian government is overwhelming. Since his murder, there have been dozens, if not hundreds, of well-documented but unresolved extrajudicial executions in the diaspora. The 1992 Mykonos restaurant assassinations of Kurdish leadership further demonstrate that the Islamic Republic of Iran is systematically targeting Kurdish intellectual and political figures to suppress Kurdish aspirations,and doing so outside Iran's borders, in the sovereign territory of other nations, with ease and impunity.

What is perhaps most tragic about remaining silent in the face of state-sanctioned crimes is that it leaves people without any place of safety or sense of security. Dissidents and political refugees seeking asylum abroad find themselves unable to achieve peace. They are faced with lives defined by fear, intimidation, terror, extortion, and even death. Many have witnessed colleagues disappear or property arbitrarily destroyed. To treat these crimes as isolated and negligible acts would be to entirely diminish the importance of human rights. It leaves citizens of every nation vulnerable to attacks by states that choose to operate outside the law. If state sovereignty is important to Iran, it should also be important to the nations where these attacks occur.

What must be loudly and clearly communicated to the world is that impunity for crimes perpetrated by the IRI is not merely a Kurdish issue but an international threat. Crimes like these must be treated as international crises meriting direct and swift action. The fact that Iran has been able to carry out such crimes for over thirty years without meaningful diplomatic or legal consequences should itself be considered an act of complicity.

 

 

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