ATU Holds the First Conference on Defending the Rights of Chemical Weapons Victims in the Iran-Iraq War

On 15 and 16 February 2015, ATU Faculty of Law and Political Sciences held the first international conference on “Upholding the Rights of the Victims of Chemical Weapons in the Iran-Iraq War in the National and International Forum”.

The conference was convened with the presence of Dr Elham Aminzadeh, Vice-President for Legal Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran, together with a host of members of the parliament (MPs) to analyze such subjects as the competency of national and international courts in handling the lawsuits filed for/by the victims of chemical weapons; the use of chemical weapons in wars as an instance of war crime; the undue delay in the lawsuits concerning the victims of chemical weapons; the liabilities for sending chemical weapons to Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war; the rights of the victims of chemical weapons; the responsibilities of the present Iraqi government for the use of chemical weapons in the Iran-Iraq war; the Iranian Government’s commitment to support the victims of chemical weapons within the international system framework; the environmental effects of the application of chemical weapons in Iran-Iraq war; the necessity for documentation of the lawsuits of the victims of chemical weapons; the economic consequences of the use of chemical weapons in the Iran-Iraq war; a comparative study of various countries’ legislations in terms of their supports for the victims of chemical weapons; and solutions for enhancing the state of handling the lawsuits of the victims of chemical weapons.

At this conference, Dr Hossein Salimi, ATU President, Mohammadreza Zia’i-Bigdeli, Ghasem Zamani, Hossein Sharifi-Tarazkouhi, Kiumars Kalantari, Pourya Askari, Amin Jafari, Hamid Salihi, Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh and Aramesh Shahbazi were the local participants, while Dr Olivier Martin, Head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Representative Office in Tehran, Johnny Nehme, Kathleen Lawand, and Neil Davison participated in the conference as international guests and keynote speakers.