An economic meltdown has plunged Iran into severe unrest, with mass protests, mounting fatalities and US military threats raising fears of a wider regional conflict. Unrest in December followed a sharp drop in the value of the rial that wiped out purchasing power for much of Iran’s 90 million population. Protesters have demanded economic relief and broader political changes.

Iranian authorities initially showed restraint, but the security forces later responded with lethal force. The opaque environment, including internet shutdowns, makes independent verification difficult, and conflicting casualty figures have emerged, which has proven controversial.

On 21 January, the Martyrs Foundation, a state body that provides support to families of the dead, announced a 'preliminary' death toll of 3,117 people, classifying 2,427 as ‘martyrs’, which encompasses security personnel and civilians Tehran says were killed by protesters. They labelled the remaining 690 as ‘terrorists.’

Iran saw sustained unrest in 2025, including protests by truck drivers and by incarcerated prisoners, and, in 2022, the ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ movement. The recent protests stand out, though, underscoring the breadth of public discontent on economic grounds. Despite an internet blackout that began on 8 January, scenes of mass protests and crackdown still reached the outside world.

The scale of the violence in Iran triggered an emergency session of the UN Security Council on 13 January. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk demanded an immediate end to the ‘brutal force’ used by security forces. ‘The killing of peaceful demonstrators must stop and the labelling of protesters as ‘terrorists’ to justify violence against them is unacceptable,’ he said.

UN human rights investigator Mai Sato and other experts warned that the systematic targeting of protesters risks triggering a broader human rights crisis. They pointed to impunity granted to government officials responsible for the violence. At a UN Human Rights Council session on the protests, Iran’s ambassador, Ali Bahreini, rejected the proceedings as politically motivated, accusing sponsors of ignoring the impact of Western sanctions on Iranians and of supporting Israel’s strikes in June 2025 that killed civilians.

Mark Ellis, Executive Director of the IBA, says Iran’s crackdown has broken international laws and treaties protecting life, freedom, fair trials, free speech, children’s rights and access to healthcare. ‘These operations have involved egregious tactics, including the use of live ammunition and other lethal weapons against demonstrators. There have been mass arrests, detention without prompt charge or judicial review, denial of access to lawyers and family members and interrogations under coercive conditions,’ he says.

Toby Cadman is a Member of the IBA War Crimes Committee Advisory Board. ‘Evidence points to repeated violations by the authorities,’ he says, ‘with protesters often pummelled by live ammunition, mass arrests, and intimidation’. Mounting evidence of systematic abuses could constitute serious treaty violations and potential international crimes. Iran remains a state party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which guarantees the right to peaceful assembly.

The unrest has created risks to regional stability and global energy markets. The United States signalled it would send help to the protests and President Donald Trump said Washington was considering ‘all options,’ including military strikes and ‘leadership removal’. On 15 January, the US sanctioned five Iranian officials and threatened Tehran’s trade partners with 25 percent tariffs. Meanwhile, the UK and EU have prepared a fresh tranche of sanctions targeting Iran’s energy and software sectors. The US military build-up in the Gulf continues and, on 26 January, the Pentagon confirmed that the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, had arrived in the region, a major strategic signal.

‘Unilateral intervention by the US, Israel, or any other state without Security Council authorisation would, in principle, breach the prohibition on the use of force under Article 2(4) of the UN Charter,’ says Cadman, ‘except in cases of self-defence against an armed attack as provided by Article 51. The threshold for self-defence is high and requires clear evidence of an actual or imminent armed attack. Pre-emptive or preventative strikes remain highly controversial and are generally not accepted under current international law.’

In direct response to US rhetoric describing Iran’s Supreme Leader as a ‘sick man’ and calling for new leadership, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian stated that any attack on the Supreme Leader would be a ‘declaration of war’ and would trigger a ‘full-scale war.’ Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi said Iran will be ‘firing back with everything’ if attacked.

Iranian media outlets have defended Iranian security policies by saying the protesters killed security personnel and set fire to government offices and mosques. The state-affiliated Press TV called the protests ‘foreign-backed’ and blamed the US and Israel for using Starlink and cyber-ops to coordinate the protests on the ground. ‘What remains today is not strategy, but escalation driven by frustration and imperial decline. Open endorsement of unrest, public threats of force and abandonment of diplomatic restraint signal a shift from calculated coercion to impulsive escalation.’

Despite blaming foreigners, the protests forced a rare acknowledgement from senior Iranian officials of domestic economic woes, previously attributed solely to Western sanctions. President Pezeshkian, Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf and Judiciary Chief Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei said in a joint statement they were ‘committed to work around the clock, follow the directives of Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, and utilise the capacity of the elite and the educated, to solve livelihood and economic problems and ensure public security, through unity.’

Iranian media claim the protests have ‘fizzled out,’ a report that could not be independently verified. The threat of US strikes too may have been temporarily delayed. ‘We are entering a truly perilous period,’ says Cadman, ‘not only for the people of Iran but for the broader international community and the norms that underpin global order,’ adding that the international community must stand with Iranians to assert their fundamental rights and peacefully protest against the government. ‘Our solidarity must be unwavering, yet also principled. We must not exacerbate the situation or provoke further instability through hasty or unlawful measures.’

Federica D'Alessandra, Co-chair of the IBA's Rule of Law Forum, says US military force, or threats to use it, violate international law and risk dangerous escalation. ‘The world already appears to be on a precipice, and the current geopolitical moment is unquestionably fraught with peril,’ she says. ‘In the last month, we have seen concrete US military action against Venezuela, as well as threats of annexations over Greenland – both of which were clear international law violations.’

And she adds: ‘We should be asking ourselves, “what sort of precedent does it set when the world’s most powerful country can flout international norms against the use of force - whether actualized or threatened - so frequently and overtly against other states and what impact on global stability any further erosions of this crucial norm would have?”.’

Cadman says: ‘Now, more than ever, we must champion justice, legality, and respect for sovereignty, offering meaningful support to the Iranian people without compromising the rule of law or international legitimacy.’ Though protests may have waned amid crackdowns, Iran’s inflation, joblessness and crumbling currency remain unresolved. As sanctions tighten, military build-up in the Gulf widens and threats loom larger. The crisis is both an internal uprising and test of existing international legal frameworks.

Emad Mekay can be contacted at emad.mekay@int-bar.org

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