The law on the “Protection of Children and Adolescents”,23 adopted in June 2020, provides alternative punishments for persons under the age of 18 except for crimes under qisas and hudud, where the Islamic Penal Code sentences prevails.24 In qisas cases, the execution of the sentence is solely based on the request of the victim or the victim’s guardian, which deprives the child of his or her right to seek pardon or commutation from the State.25 There are a number of institutions which can intervene to mediate cases of children sentenced with qisas, notably in order to commute qisas into diya sentences (blood money). These institutions include a reconciliation commission, a working group tasked to support mediation with the next of kin victim, conflict resolution council branches and the Women and Children and Protection Office of the judiciary. 26 There is no readily available information that would indicate the number of cases received, reviewed and adjudicated by these institutions. Additionally, Article 91 of the 2013 Islamic Penal Code allows judges to pronounce alternative sentences in circumstances where the juvenile “do not realize the nature of the crime committed or its prohibition, or if there is uncertainty about their full mental development, according to their age.”27 The Article further adds that “the court may ask the opinion of forensic medicine or resort to any other method that it sees appropriate in order to establish the full mental development.” In 2017, a number of special procedure mandate holders described ongoing executions of child offenders in the Islamic Republic of Iran as “conclusive proof of the failure of the 2013 amendments to stop the execution of individuals sentenced to death as children.”28 In 2019, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran found that the aforementioned assessment of the mental development of the accused at the time of the offence was “arbitrary and inconsistent, and at the sole discretion of the judge, who can choose whether to seek medical advice or not.”29 The prohibition of imposing the death penalty on children is widely considered to be jus cogens under international law and represent a violation of Articles 6(5) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and 37(a) of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Human Rights Committee has explicitly stipulated that the death penalty cannot be imposed if it cannot be proved, beyond reasonable doubt, that the accused was older than 18 years old at the time of the 23 The law adopted on May 12, 2020 : https://shenasname.ir/laws/6788 Article 25 of the law of “Protection of Children and Adolescents”. 25 Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran, January 2019, https://undocs.org/Home/Mobile?FinalSymbol=A%2FHRC%2F40%2F67&Language=E&DeviceType=Desktop 26 Ibid. 27 Article 91, Islamic Penal Code (2013), English translation, Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, https://iranhrdc.org/english-translation-of-books-i-ii-of-the-new-islamic-penal-code/ 28 See OHCHR News, www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=21547&LangID=E 29 Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran, January 2019, https://undocs.org/Home/Mobile?FinalSymbol=A%2FHRC%2F40%2F67&Language=E&DeviceType=Desktop 24 4