The Concept of Knowledge in Iran Criminal Law and International Criminal Court

The knowledge of the perpetrator is one of the most challenging components of the realization of crimes in Iranian criminal law and International Criminal Law. In the system of international criminal law, before drafting of the statute of International Criminal Court, and in Iranian criminal law, before the Islamic Penal Code 1392, the issue of the perpetrator’s knowledge was never discussed independently. In the Rome Statute and in the Islamic Penal Code, under the mens rea, it has referred to the knowledge of the perpetrator for the realization of crimes. However, despite these provisions, this issue still faces conceptual challenges due to the use of vague terms in the definition of knowledge. Thus, in this study, this issue was examined descriptively and analytically and the results of this research include determining the concept of knowledge in Iranian criminal law and International Criminal Court. This research also shows that logical knowledge for predicting the criminal result includes the prediction of a certain and definite outcome, not a possible prediction; on the other hand, knowledge as a cognitive element in some cases can replace or cover the administrative element.