DPRU RESEARCH PAPERS Figure 1: Graph indicating the initial decline in death sentencing for drug-related offences in the wake of the 2017 reform to the Anti-Narcotics Law. Source: Iran Human Rights and Ensemble Contre la Peine de Mort (ECPM), Annual Report on the Death Penalty in Iran 2020 (2021). Until 2017, the majority of executions in the ratified the Second Optional Protocol.28 However, it Islamic Republic of Iran were for drug-related has failed to contain the application of the death offences. The reform to the Anti-Narcotics law penalty to ‘only the most serious offences’ as per rowed back on the 1997 and 2011 revisions, which Article 6(2). There is also very little scope for successively lowered the death-eligible minimum appealing to a higher court, as allowed by Article thresholds for drug trafficking. Since then, although 14(5). Iran is a party to the Vienna Convention on the numbers of those executed for drug offences Consular Relations of 1963, which is meant to reduced in 2018-2020, in 2021 the number of ensure people executed for drug offences rose again countries with detained nationals can communicate sharply. In 2021, at least 131 people (36%) were with suspects and prisoners, in particular to provide executed for drug offences, compared with 30 or them with information and support, including, fewer drug-related execution in each of the years sometimes, access to legal representation.29 In Iran, from 2018-2020.27 Foreign nationals (particularly these rights are often ignored.30 Detainees’ access Afghans and Baluchi Pakistanis) disproportionately to a lawyer has also been limited and has recently face the death penalty for these crimes, partly due been restricted by changes to the Code of Criminal to their involvement in the drug trade routes. Procedure.31 Furthermore, the Islamic Republic of Internationally, Iran has been a state party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) since 1975, although it has not yet that consular representatives from Iran refuses to recognise dual nationality, meaning that the Vienna Convention is often viewed as entirely irrelevant to dual Iranian nationals who are detained. 4