The issue of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran has preoccupied scholars and the international community since the early 1980s. Iran is a State Party to five of the ten Core International Human Rights Instruments embedded in the United Nations treaty system.1 The core human rights treaties are binding on members, meaning that States Parties are obligated to ensure consistency between national laws and international standards. However, Iran has made sweeping reservations to the treaties that are incompatible with the objects and purposes of the principles laid out in the texts. While the Iranian government has been subject to serious criticism for failing to promote and protect human rights, it claims to be adhering to Islamic principles of justice that are more culturally relevant to the lives of its citizens. There is, however, a wide gap between the official position of Iranās tight circle of governing elites and many liberal thinkers operating at the margins, outside the formal corridors of power. Hassan Rouhaniās election nomination in 2013 was a regime response to the deepening crisis of legitimacy, which he promised to address by restoring popular will and respect for human rights. This message reverberated among the reformist camp and the range of civic initiatives that galvanised around social grievances. At the grassroots level, advocacy efforts like the One Million Signatures Campaign demanding an end to all discrimination against women have promoted the accord between universal human rights standards and Islamic principles.
In 2007 Iranian lawyer and Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi said: āHuman rights discourse is alive and well [in Iran] and civil society considers it the most powerful framework for achieving sustainable reform.ā2 This is a powerful statement by one of Iranās foremost voices of progressive change. But it is one that requires some interrogation. Human rights approaches to change are grounded in norms that claim universality and an ethic of giving voice to the oppressed, and there are qualitative indications of a growing domestic culture that supports human rights in Iran. However, reports of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran suggest that overall the human rights situation in Iran is not improving , and that in some respects, it is getting worse.3
As in other highly restricted environments there are several problems with employing human rights discourse in the pursuit of progressive change in the Islamic Republic. Proponents of human rights are often subject to intense harassment, intimidation and repression. This includes those who attempt to work inside formal avenues. Two prominent regime insiders seeking reform, Mehdi Karroubi and Mir-Hossein Mousavi, have been under house arrest following their refusal to accept the 2009 re-election of conservative President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But human rights actors also face a number of internal challenges relating to leadership, organisation and capacity. Grassroots movements (for example, the Green Movement) are often ad-hoc, reactionary and short-lived. In addition, it is rare for agents of change working in different arenas to come together to share best practice and support one anotherās efforts in coordinated and complementary ways. To the contrary, they sometimes demonstrate mutual antagonism and mistrust. The most obvious example of this is the lack of a systematic and sustained working relationship between civil-society activists and political reformists. Efforts towards human rights reform in Iran have failed not only because of their difficult operating environment, but also because of internal strategic miscalculations. Operational shortcomings have undermined the potential of human rights advocacy in Iran.
Conceptual Framework and Aims
This volume seeks to shed light on the above problem by grounding human rights work in Iran within a theory of change. A theory of change links a goal or concept (the theory) with the mechanisms or methodologies that are designed to deliver on the promise of the goal or concept (the change).4 It is a model of how influencing activities are envisioned to result in positive change in policy or in peopleās lives. Working within a theory of change is standard practice for development agencies. It is less common for human rights actors, who tend to rely on the ethic of their claims to universality rather than an evidence base of causal links between strategies and outcomes. But by examining issues such as causation, influence, sequencing, prioritisation, and roles and relationships, a theory of change can ultimately make human rights work more effective. The potential advantage of rendering a theory of change explicit is that it provides a vantage point from which influencing activities can be viewed, coordinated and, if necessary, reformed.5
Paul Gready and Wouter Vandenholeās work on key entry points to theories of change provides the conceptual starting point for this volume. They suggest that agents of change exert influence through five distinct avenues: the state; the law; transnational and international collaboration; local and grassroots action; and multiple and complex methods.6 A simplified way of thinking about key entry points is to consider what assumptions a theory of change might put forward about the most appropriate direction of change. The pursuit of change through the state and the law, for example, exemplifies the top-down/inside-track approach to reform. On the other hand, localised, grassroots initiatives for change exemplify the bottom-up/outside track approach. The authors in this volume offer a critical analysis of the work being undertaken in Iran to influence change from both directions: top-down/inside track (through state policies, programs and law reform) and bottom-up/outside track (through projects, campaigns and operational activities by grassroots movements).
Dara Conduit and Shahram Akbarzadeh, Leila Alikarami, and Ghoncheh Tazmini, for example, tackle the top-down/inside-track approach. In Chap. 2, Conduit and Akbarzadeh look at the role of the state with a case study on the Rouhani governmentās policy initiatives to establish greater internet freedom in Iran. In Chap. 3, Tazmini also takes the Rouhani government as a case study for state-led change, examining how his administration has attempted to modernise Iran in a way that remains in line with the central pillars of Iranās political philosophy (republicanism, development, justice and independence). In Chap. 4, Alikarami explores the role of the law in facilitating change, through an analysis of the Defenders of Human Rights Centre and the efforts of its members to advocate for legal, policy and structural reform in Iran.
Other authors deal with the bottom-up/outside track approach to change. In Chap. 5, Payam Akhavan provides a powerful case study on the Iran Peopleās Tribunal, highlighting the power of grassroots justice as an alternative to impunity. In Chap. 6, Rebecca Barlow looks at secular and Islamic feminist work to increase womenās parliamentary representation in Iran, arguing that a more formal working alliance between the two groups will enhance efforts for change. In Chap. 7, Ali Honari examines the revival of the Iranian student movement in the post-Ahmadinejad years, analysing both external and internal constraints on revitalisation, as well as the strategies employed by student activists to face those challenges. In Chap. 8, Simin Fadaee analyses how the environment movement in Iran has morphed and shifted its objectives and strategies over time so as to avoid full demobilisation. And in Chap. 9, Meysam Badamchi explores the complex issue of multiculturalism in Iran, arguing that a lack of dialogue between pro-democracy reformists and minority ethnic groups is stifling progress. In Chap. 10, we provide a synthesis of lessons learned from each case study, drawing out what does and does not seem to work well in terms of leading and facilitating the promotion and protection of human rights in Iran.
Importantly, it is not the intent of this volume to construct theories of change on behalf of agents of change in Iran. Rather, using a framework of inquiry developed by Rosalind Eyben et al., the authors address a number of fundamental questions underpinning the development of a theory of change: What are agents of change trying to achieve? Who are they trying to influence? What strategies are or would be most effective? What are the constraints on change? How do agents of change understand their particular role and strengths in effecting change, and what is their relationship with others seeking to achieve change? What kinds of partnerships would be most effective in achieving the change? And what else is happening that may affect the outcomes of their efforts?7 These questions can be annotated as a consideration of objectives, targets, strategies, constraints, roles and relationships, and context.
Through an analysis of these aspects for both top-down and bottom-up initiatives, the authors seek to contribute towards being able to think more strategically about human rights in Iran and how agents of change might review and revise thei...