It may be a woman's sentence to "death by stoning" that has grabbed international attention, but that's just the tip of the deadly iceberg when it comes to Iran, says a star-studded group of 100 international law and human-rights activists.
The Responsibility to Prevent Coalition, chaired by former Canadian justice minister Irwin Cotler, says that a "toxic mix" of four dangerous policy streams has made the government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad "a clear and present danger to international peace and security … and to its own people."
Iran's threat of developing nuclear weapons, its incitement to genocide, sponsorship of terrorism as well the widespread abuse of its own citizens' rights, add up to a responsibility for the international community to act.
"States have a legal obligation," said Mr. Cotler, speaking at the coalition's first press briefing Tuesday in Jerusalem, "to prevent Iran from carrying through with its deadly course of action."
"This is not just a policy option, but an international legal obligation of the first order," he emphasized.
"Iran has already committed the crime of incitement to genocide prohibited by the Genocide Convention," he noted, referring to statements by Mr. Ahmadinejad de-legitimizing Jews in general and Israel in particular. States party to that convention therefore are required to act against any state that violates the convention, and Iran is a signatory of that international treaty.
The RTP Coalition, which includes Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel, Lebanese scholar Fouad Ajami, former Canadian prime minister Paul Martin, and Egyptian democracy advocate Saad Eddin Ibrahim among its members, has amassed an impressive dossier of Iran's alleged violations of the Genocide and other conventions, and other international laws.
As well as citing brutal forms of capital punishment and the murder of political dissidents, the group's report, entitled The Danger of a Nuclear, Genocidal and Rights-Violating Iran, also notes that more juveniles have been executed in Iran in recent years, and more journalists have been imprisoned, than in any other country.
"It sounds like we're back in the 1930s," said Amnon Rubenstein, a former Israeli political leader and another member of the coalition. There's "a dictatorship making threats, and a dithering international community," he said. "We know from experience that such a situation leads to catastrophe."
To avoid a catastrophe, the coalition has laid out "an 18-point road map" for countries and international organizations to follow.
It calls on states party to the Genocide Convention to refer the matter of Iran's incitement to genocide to the United Nations Security Council, as provided for in the treaty, to invoke sanctions against Iran.
And it calls on all states to enforce the Security Council's existing sanctions against Iran for its pursuit and development of nuclear weapons. "The first three rounds of UN Security Council resolutions, intended to sanction the nuclear threat, have been inconsistently and selectively enforced," the coalition's report states.
As well, the petition urges states to target Iran's importation of gasoline and other refined petroleum products. "This is Iran's Achilles heel," said Mr. Cotler, referring to the fact that Iran, an exporter of oil, lacks adequate refining capacity for a country of its size.
And it calls on all states to invoke measures to constrain trade and investment with Iran.
Many of the sanctions the group advocates are so-called "smart sanctions" that seek to restrict the country's leadership - travel bans and seizure of assets, for example.
"The underlying principle of these remedies and sanctions is to target the Iranian regime and its leaders … while not harming and, indeed, protecting the Iranian people," Mr. Cotler says in his group's petition.
"Iranians need to know we stand with them," he added.
Mr. Rubenstein, a former dean of law, doubts that sanctions will have the desired effect. "But they're important for two reasons," he said.
"First, they can embolden the opposition in Iran," he said. "Second, they can prepare the ground for the possibility of military attack."