A Pathological Study of Iranian Substantive Criminal Policy on the Crime of Espionage

In recent decades, the realm of criminalization of crimes against security and the issue of espionage, in particular, have undergone essential changes. Despite this fact, the Iranian criminal policy on this issue has not changed over the last one hundred years. Thus, this policy suffers from various shortcomings. The lack of consistency of the Iranian criminal policy with the new developments of espionage consists of three bases and their criminal responses. The legal basis consists of: the existence of legislative ambiguities regarding evidence of espionage, the lack of distinction between espionage and treason, and the use of various unnecessary restrictions. The physical and psychological basis consists of: restrictions in cases of espionage, lack of inclusion of new security aspects, and limiting the criminalization of espionage to certain criminal intentions. Due to the above-mentioned shortcomings and the legislator’s lack of support for the essential interests of society, it is necessary that the legislator expands the scope of criminalization to include economic, cultural and social aspects of security and to also expand it to refer to information and objects. Therefore, if the criminalization of espionage is not limited to certain criminal intentions, a rigid definition of espionage is not given and different types of espionage are not itemized, the regulations may gain some relative order and improve.