Mahdi Baeidi Nejad
PhD Student in International Relations, University of Isfahan
Introduction
This article offers a critical reading of the United Nations Human Rights Council emergency session concerning the attack on the Shajareh Tayyebeh Girls’ School in Minab. Drawing upon the discussions advanced during the session, it argues that certain delegations and non-governmental organizations maintained an appropriate focus on the protection of children, the legal status of schools, and the necessity of accountability. At the same time, other states failed to adequately recognize the nature and context of the event that gave rise to the humanitarian crisis and, consequently, introduced broader yet non-central issues into the debate in a manner that diluted the immediate normative focus of the session. This article does not claim that those broader concerns were illegitimate. Its argument is narrower and primarily procedural in nature: in a forum convened because schoolchildren had been killed, analytical discipline and institutional credibility required sustained attention to remain directed toward the attack itself, the applicable legal framework, and the obligations of those responsible for carrying it out.
The emergency session examined in this article was convened for a specific reason and under a clearly defined title: the protection of children and educational institutions in the context of an international armed conflict, following the attack on the Shajareh Tayyebeh Girls’ School in Minab. This symbolic fact is important. It means that the relevant standard for assessing the interventions delivered during the session is not whether those interventions reflected every legitimate concern that might arise regarding the broader regional conflict or the domestic human rights situation in Iran. The more precise question is whether those interventions remained responsive and relevant to the event that prompted the session, the legal questions raised by that event, and the victims whose deaths gave the meeting its urgency from the outset.
This article approaches the session not merely as a space for moral judgment, but also as a test of institutional method. Certain participants treated the attack itself as the normative center of the session. Their interventions focused on the legal protections afforded to children, the special status of schools as civilian objects, the obligation to investigate, and the necessity of accountability. Others, by contrast, adopted a broader framework. They expressed concern for the victims in Minab, but rapidly transitioned toward wider issues described in terms such as “state repression,” “regional hostilities,” or “comparative misconduct by other actors.” These broader issues are undoubtedly important; the difficulty lies in the fact that, within this setting, they frequently operated less as context and more as displacement.
Accordingly, the argument advanced here is critical, though neither indiscriminate nor sweeping. This article does not contend that every actor who broadened the framework of discussion acted in bad faith, nor that a human rights institution should ignore broader patterns when examining a single tragedy. Rather, the argument is that certain discussions during the session revealed an avoidable failure of focus. A meeting that ought to have remained centered on the attack against a school, the applicable legal framework, and the adequacy of responses to that attack was, through the conduct of some states, redirected toward familiar geopolitical patterns.
A Victim-Centered Moment at a Time When the Session Needed It Most
The most compelling intervention during the session came not from a state or international organization, but from the mother of two children killed in the attack. Her testimony did not add a legal doctrine to the discussion, yet it provided something the atmosphere of the session repeatedly risked losing: the victim-centered orientation that should structure any serious human rights discussion concerning attacks against children. She spoke of the ordinary act of sending children to school, of waiting for their return, and of the fundamental rupture created by their absence. What her intervention contributed was not emotionalism, but an ethical and evidence-based foundation. Her words reminded the Council that the destruction under discussion was not “civilian harm” in the abstract, but the extinguishing of real lives within an institution that international law fundamentally regards as civilian and socially indispensable.
This testimony ought to have carried methodological implications for the remainder of the debate. Within the practice of international humanitarian law, victim participation is not merely symbolic; it is closely connected to recognition, truth-seeking, accountability, and reparations. For this reason, the mother’s account mattered not only because of its emotional force, but because it clarified the proper order of analysis: first the victims, then the law, and only thereafter politics. Much of the discussion reversed this order. States and organizations frequently began with geopolitics, proceeded to general condemnations, and only at the end returned briefly to the children killed in Minab. The result was not an absence of concern, but rather a distortion in emphasis.
To state this is not to deny the place of broader contextual considerations. Armed conflicts cannot be understood without them. However, there is a crucial difference between context that helps explain an event and context that competes with it. The intervention of the mothers made this distinction unmistakably clear; their testimony placed before the Council the irreducible reality that the emergency session existed because children had been killed in a school. Any intervention that lost sight of this fact, even through measured rhetoric, weakened the moral and procedural coherence of the meeting.
The Legal Baseline: Schools, Civilian Protection, and Accountability
The legal baseline applicable to this session was not difficult to identify. Under international humanitarian law, parties to an armed conflict must at all times distinguish between civilians and combatants, as well as between civilian objects and military objectives. Schools are considered civilian objects and, as such, are protected from attack unless and for such time as they become military objectives. Children likewise benefit from special protection under both international humanitarian law and international human rights law. Furthermore, the conduct of any attack remains governed by the principles of distinction, proportionality, and precaution, including the obligation to take all feasible steps to verify that intended targets are military objectives and to adopt all feasible precautions to avoid or minimize incidental civilian harm.
These principles were not introduced into the discussion retrospectively by external commentators; they were articulated during the session itself. The Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education, Farida Shaheed, described the attack on a school as “a grave assault against children, against education, and against the future of an entire society.” She emphasized that attacks directed against civilians or civilian objects, or attacks in which the distinction between military targets and civilian infrastructure has not been properly respected, may constitute war crimes. She further stated that a preliminary United States military review had concluded that American forces were responsible for the missile strike and that the school and surrounding buildings had been struck separately using precision-guided munitions. On that basis, she raised a number of questions: Was outdated intelligence used? Who failed in the target verification process? Where does responsibility lie within the chain of command?
Even if questions of intent are set aside, the legal implications remain serious. Under Article 57 of Additional Protocol I and corresponding rules of customary international humanitarian law, an attack may be unlawful not only when civilians are intentionally targeted, but also when feasible precautions are not taken. Once this legal baseline had been articulated with such clarity, the tendency to retreat into generalized calls directed at “all parties,” or to rapidly move away from the attack itself toward more peripheral matters, became increasingly difficult to justify as prudence and instead appeared more akin to avoidance or a failure of prioritization.
This point also matters from the perspective of the broader protection of education. International practice in this field has developed beyond the minimal proposition that “schools are civilian objects.” The Safe Schools Declaration, the Guidelines for Protecting Schools and Universities from Military Use during Armed Conflict, and recent practices of the United Nations Security Council all reflect an emerging institutional emphasis that educational institutions must remain protected spaces and that attacks against them carry profound social consequences. From this perspective, the Minab session was not legally marginal; it was fully situated within a recognized body of norms designed to protect children and educational environments during hostilities.
The Intervention of Abbas Araghchi and the Question of “Miscalculation”
Among the interventions delivered by states, the remarks of Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi were among the more notable contributions. His central argument was that states — in this case the United States — which portray themselves as technologically advanced and operationally precise cannot simply invoke “miscalculation” when a school filled with children is struck. If an attack is described as “precise,” and even characterized by Pete Hegseth as “the deadliest and most precise” in history, such claims do not diminish the level of legal scrutiny; rather, when a protected civilian target such as a school is hit, they intensify it.
This does not mean that the law presumes intent whenever civilian casualties occur. It means, instead, that assertions of precision are not by themselves sufficient to resolve legal concerns under the rules governing attacks. On the contrary, such claims heighten the importance of standards relating to feasibility, target verification, intelligence quality, and responsibility within the chain of command. Araghchi’s intervention was therefore most persuasive where it highlighted this limited yet fundamental contradiction: if decision-makers possessed advanced surveillance and targeting capabilities, how does one explain the attack on a school that was identified during the session itself as a civilian educational institution?
Yet one of the notable features of the session was that several delegations did not directly engage with this issue. Rather than confronting the contradiction between claims of precision and the destruction of a school, they turned toward generalized statements concerning de-escalation, the need for investigations, or the conduct of other actors. The challenge was not merely the abstract demand for an investigation; it was the necessity of examining whether the standards of target verification and precautionary measures — as outlined by the Special Rapporteur — had in fact been satisfied according to the narrative presented during the session itself.
States that Remained Focused on the Core Subject of the Session
Several delegations structured their interventions in a manner that remained closely aligned with the central purpose of the emergency session. Spain, China, Russia, Oman, Indonesia, Colombia, Greece, South Africa, Malaysia, Cuba, Iraq, The Gambia, Ireland, Kenya, Vietnam, Brazil, Italy, and Mexico, among many others, focused their statements on the attack against the school, the protection owed to children, and the necessity of accountability. Their tones varied in intensity, yet the structure of their interventions was noteworthy. They did not treat Minab merely as a pretext for immediately returning to other agendas; rather, they treated it as the very reason the Council had convened.
This is not to suggest that these positions were flawless in every respect, nor that their broader political stances are immune from criticism. The point here is narrower. In a meeting convened because schoolchildren had been killed, these delegations organized their interventions according to a coherent order and emphasis. They began with the attack itself, remained focused upon it, and linked it directly to the applicable legal norms. This approach contributed to preserving the coherence of the discussion and helped prevent the impression that certain violations become more difficult to name when the alleged perpetrators are powerful states or their allies.
A broader lesson also emerges here: the credibility of human rights discourse depends not on sentiment, but on consistency and coherence of method. Delegations that maintained focus on the Minab attack demonstrated an approach that could have been more consistently observed throughout the debate: identifying the event precisely, articulating the applicable legal norm, demanding investigation and accountability, and refraining from allowing external issues to overshadow the core subject of the session.
Europe’s Broader Framing
The European Union and several aligned European states, including France, United Kingdom, and Germany, did not ignore the deaths of children in Minab. They expressed concern, offered condolences, called for respect for international law, and emphasized the importance of de-escalation. The difficulty, however, lay elsewhere. Statement after statement rapidly shifted from the attack on the school toward the domestic human rights situation in Iran and broader regional dynamics. These issues, although in many instances framed in exaggerated terms, may indeed warrant discussion within an appropriate setting and timeframe. Yet in this specific session, they were not the immediate matter before the Council.
The issue was not merely that these delegations raised concerns beyond the scope of the discussion, but that they did so in a way that weakened the specific normative focus of the emergency session. The European Union’s statement, although lamenting civilian casualties, was criticized for failing to clearly identify and articulate the role of the perpetrating actor and, consequently, for not explicitly holding the United States accountable for what had occurred. In doing so, it treated the casualties in Minab as somewhat detached from the legal and political framework that shaped them. The statement then redirected its focus toward the rights and freedoms of the Iranian people and the European Union’s restrictive measures concerning alleged human rights violations within Iran. France, for example, acknowledged the attack on the school but rapidly transitioned toward the human rights situation in Iran. The United Kingdom and Germany followed a similar pattern, moving from the attack on the school toward discussions concerning Iran’s domestic affairs and its engagement with Council mechanisms.
This recurring pattern had two consequences. First, it blurred the distinction between a session convened in response to a specific event and a broader debate about Iran in general. Second, it revealed a form of asymmetry in the description of events. The attack on the school was frequently expressed in broader or more abstract terms, while criticism of Iran was direct and highly detailed. From an institutional perspective, this asymmetry matters because it suggests that some delegations appeared more willing to precisely identify and elaborate upon what they regarded as Iran’s misconduct than to describe, with equal clarity and specificity, the very event that had prompted the emergency session itself.
It may be argued that these states were attempting to avoid selectivity. Nevertheless, this approach raises important procedural concerns. Expanding emergency sessions into broad discussions encompassing a wide range of recurring issues risks obscuring the distinction between the immediate trigger for the debate and wider associated matters. In the case of the Minab session, this tendency appears to have weakened the clarity of the legal assessment surrounding the attack itself.
The intervention by Belgium offered a particularly clear illustration of the problem of ordering and prioritization in diplomatic discourse. Belgium did not begin its intervention with the attack on the school, but rather with a message directed beyond the immediate focus of the session and toward Iran as the state requesting the meeting. Belgium declared: “Iran must stop the violent repression of its own population.” The criticism advanced here is not that Belgium was wrong to express concern regarding the human rights situation in Iran. Rather, it is that in a session convened because children had been killed following an airstrike against a school, this ordering of priorities was methodologically misplaced. Sequencing in diplomacy is not merely stylistic; it reveals what the speaker considers to be the principal issue before the meeting. By beginning with Iran’s domestic conduct, Belgium conveyed the impression that the emergency session was, at least in part, an opportunity to pressure the requesting state rather than to directly address the event that had caused the session to be convened. This became particularly significant because, according to the narrative presented during the session itself, the alleged responsibility for the attack rested with another actor — namely, the United States. A more persuasive intervention could have reversed this order: first the school, first the children killed, first the applicable law and the necessity of accountability, and only thereafter, if necessary, broader concerns. Such an approach would not have weakened principled engagement; rather, it would have aligned it more coherently with the actual subject of the session.
Taken together, a considerable number of European Union member states devoted greater attention to criticizing the Iranian government for alleged violations than to directly recognizing the source of the attack against the girls’ school. This imbalance in emphasis effectively marginalized the central issue of the crisis and weakened the demand for clear, immediate, and unequivocal accountability from those responsible. The failure to explicitly identify the responsible actor — namely, the United States — and, consequently, the reluctance to demand concrete measures such as reparations and compensation, risks undermining foundational principles of international law, including obligations arising from the unlawful use of force and violations of international humanitarian law. Several states, including United Kingdom, France, Germany, India, Australia, Belgium, Türkiye, Finland, and Austria adopted a cautious and restrained approach. In practice, this diverted attention away from the alleged perpetrator of the reported two-stage targeted attack against the Minab school and redirected the discourse toward broader or unrelated subjects. Such an approach not only weakens the pursuit of accountability, but also contributes to the emergence of a pattern of selective application of international legal standards, thereby eroding their universality and credibility.
It may also be concluded that, in such circumstances, political interests frequently outweigh legal obligations in shaping state positions. This dynamic is rooted in the structural alignment of many countries with the United States. Strategic partnerships — whether security-related, economic, or diplomatic — create incentives for caution in publicly attributing responsibility. As a result, certain states refrain from explicitly identifying the United States as the principal actor behind the aggression and instead resort to neutral or ambiguous formulations. This pattern of restraint risks placing geopolitical considerations above legal clarity, thereby weakening the consistent application of international law and contributing little toward preventing the continuation of escalating humanitarian consequences.
Non-Governmental Organizations: Valuable Legal Interventions, Yet Uneven in Approach
The interventions delivered by non-governmental organizations revealed a similar divide. Some organizations provided legal framing closely connected to the subject matter of the session itself. Human Rights Watch described the Minab strike as a devastating and unlawful attack that should be investigated by the United States as a war crime, while Amnesty International stated that the school had been directly targeted by United States forces using guided munitions and emphasized the obligation to investigate and, where appropriate, prosecute those responsible. These interventions were significant because they grounded the discussion within recognized standards of accountability and resisted reducing the matter to a purely political dispute.
At the same time, both organizations subsequently broadened the scope of their remarks by introducing a wider range of issues relating to Iran’s domestic situation. Once again, although some of these concerns may well have been legitimate, the central criticism is that within this particular framework they competed with, rather than complemented, the core focus of the emergency session. This expansion of scope risked reproducing the same problem visible in certain state interventions: transforming a discussion about an attack on a school into a broader conversation in which the specific victims of Minab no longer occupied the unified center of attention.
The broader lesson is that human rights organizations contribute most effectively to such discussions when they maintain analytical discipline. Their comparative and broader structural perspectives are often valuable; however, in an emergency session convened in response to a specific event, these tendencies must be balanced against the institutional importance of maintaining coherent focus.
Conclusion
The Minab session may be regarded as an important moment within the practice of multilateral human rights scrutiny. First, it demonstrated that the legal framework governing attacks against schools is sufficiently clear to permit impartial assessment: schools are civilian objects, children enjoy special protection, and parties to armed conflict are obligated to observe the principles of distinction, proportionality, and precaution. Second, it showed that victim-based testimony can restore moral and methodological clarity within a setting that is otherwise susceptible to abstraction. Third, it revealed that the credibility of human rights institutions depends not merely upon whether they condemn atrocities, but also upon whether they are capable of maintaining focus on the very atrocity that brought them together in the first place.
The most important criticism emerging from the session, therefore, is not that some participants addressed unrelated matters, but rather that many organized important issues in a secondary order. A session convened because children had been killed in a school became, for a number of speakers, a platform for reiterating broader political positions. Such an approach may be understandable, but it was analytically unpersuasive and weakened legal argumentation precisely where it was most needed. Moreover, several European Union member states adopted a more cautious and restrained approach regarding the attribution of responsibility and the articulation of accountability, resulting in less explicit attribution. Nevertheless, an alternative and more coherent model was also visible within the session itself. It appeared in the testimony of the mother of one of the victims, in the legal framing advanced by the Special Rapporteur, in the focused interventions of certain states, and in the statements of those non-governmental organizations that resisted drifting into unrelated comparisons.
