Legal Assistance (LAS)

Project Number:         AD/IRA/E53

Title:                        Legal Assistance for Iran (LAS)      

Background: National legislation and membership to multi and bilateral drug control agreements

All aspects of drug control are covered by the Anti - Narcotics Drug Law of the Islamic Republic of Iran, 1988.  It covers the issues of cultivation, production, import, export, possession, consumption, distribution, sale and running premises for the use of drugs.  It also creates offences for causing the escape of, or giving protection to drug offenders already subject to prosecution, and destroying or concealing evidence. In November 1997, the Expediency Council amended the 1988 legislation with a view to making the Iranian legislation more responsive to the new aspects of the internal drug problem. In this context, the de facto decriminalization of drug consumers who voluntarily enter into rehabilitation is worthy of notice.

The Revolutionary Courts deals with all drug cases. The age of criminal responsibility is 16. Available data for 1997 reckon the number of drug related inmates to 87,000 circa, viz. 59% of the total penitential population. A large share of the total drug related convicted consists of foreigners (3981 in 1998), particularly Afghans (3728 in 1998, viz. 93.6%).

The emergence of petty crime related to drug addiction in the major Iranian towns is reason for concern for national authorities, particularly when the low crime rate peculiar to the Iranian society is considered. No provision is made in the Iranian legislation for money laundering. There is an acceptance at Ministerial level that Iran needs to modernize its anti-drugs legislation.

The I.R. of Iran is a party to all UN Conventions on illicit drugs, namely the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 1961, as amended by the Protocol of 1972, the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances, and the Convention against Illicit Trafficking in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances, 1988

In January 1999, the Government of the I.R. of Iran and the United Nations International Drug Control Programme - UNDCP - signed a Memorandum of Understanding regarding the establishment of a UNDCP (later UNODC) Office in Iran.           

Iran is also a member of Interpol (ICPO) and the World Customs Organization (WCO)

Project Legal Assistance to Iran (LAS) 

The Project constitutes the appropriate framework for continuing the already ongoing legal assistance provided by UNDCP [UNODC) to the Government of the I.R. of Iran and its regional drug control partners of the Economic Co-operation Organization (ECO). First, the project will focus on improving the skills of judges in dealing with illicit trafficking and organized crime. Second, it will enhance the capability of the Iranian Judicial system in dealing with extradition and mutual legal cases at the regional and international level. Finally, it will assist national authorities in the process of modernizing and improving their drug control legislation.