Iran Human Rights Politics.-en.pdf

During the drafting processes of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), Iran belonged to the Western Bloc in terms of political orientation and voted in favor of the UDHR. The regime was hoping to exploit the UN human rights program as an instrument for gaining international prestige, therefore, it ratified the International Covenants of Human Rights. Following the victory of the Islamic Revolution, Iran demonstrated its firm determination to challenge the universality of human rights and even called for the revision of the UDHR. Not surprisingly, the rejectionist policy also did not last long and subsequently Iran once again considered the ratification of some human rights conventions. This paper seeks to examine the complicated aspects of Iranian human rights politics in various periods and to explore the Iran exceptionalism in human rights discourse in the light of competing paradigms from receptionism to rejectionism. The first part of the paper deals with Iran human rights policy from the lens of receptionism, while the second part of the paper discusses the rejectionist policy which was adopted following the Islamic Revolution. And the third part shall focus on the paradigm shift to reservationism in the course of second and third decades after the Islamic Revolution.Then, the next paradigm shift resulting from the dichotomy is scrutinized in view of the political changes in the country. Finally, the paper concludes that the paradoxical Iranian policies towards human rights might be explained through understanding the specific characteristics of the legal system of Iran.