HRA Publishes the Practitioner ’s Guide to Addressing Alleged Serious Human Rights Violations and International Crimes Committed by the IRGC in Iran and Abroad
On April 9, 2025, HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVISTS IN IRAN (HRA) released its ‘Practitioner ’s Guide to Addressing Alleged Serious Human Rights Violations and International Crimes Committed by the IRGC in Iran and Abroad’.
This resource, developed with the legal support of UpRights, aims to provide a comprehensive, strategic and practical victim-centered overview of accessible legal avenues—judicial, quasi-judicial, and non-judicial—for holding Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) members accountable, and challenging impunity.
The Guide maps out:
• National jurisdiction over crimes committed abroad, including landmark cases in Argentina, Germany, Sweden, and the UK;
• The complex yet critical potential of universal jurisdiction;
• Limitations and possibilities at the ICC and ICJ, in light of Iran’s low treaty ratification and non-membership in key instruments;
• The role of Magnitsky-style sanctions and broader transitional justice mechanisms.
For the online launch of the Guide, UpRights’ Co-Director Valerie Gabard joined HRA’s Skylar Thompson, Natalia Kubesch of REDRESS, and the Secretariat of the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on Iran to present a strategic overview of these accountability pathways. Valérie notably outlined tools to support victims, civil society and practitioners in navigating this complex legal landscape—and in challenging impunity where domestic remedies have failed.
This Guide is not just a resource. It is a call to action: to think strategically, act collectively, and center victims’ rights, needs, and lived experiences in all accountability efforts.
Read the report here: Practitioner’s Guide to Addressing Alleged Serious Human Rights Violations and International Crimes Committed by the IRGC in Iran and Abroad
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