When Belgium’s Court of Appeal this spring upheld the sentences of three terrorists for their role in the 2018 attempted bombing of an Iranian opposition political rally in Villepinte, France, it illustrated the global community’s determination to serve justice upon anyone convicted of terrorism inflicted by Tehran — no matter how far in the past.

Held in Belgium, where the criminals planned and organized their attempted attack, the proceedings were not an isolated display of international justice. Currently Sweden is prosecuting Hamid Nouri, accused of atrocity crimes in relation to a 1988 massacre in Iran in which thousands of political prisoners were murdered. Nouri was arrested after he showed up in Sweden in 2019, and officials there are prosecuting him under that country’s universal jurisdiction laws.