Evaluating Iran's legislative criminal policy in relation to international instruments and the manner of being influenced by them is essential for identifying the legislature’s approach to the process of integrating international norms. This approach is itself rooted in perceptions of globalization, global crime control policies, and their most important mechanism: international instruments. Therefore, examining the discourses governing the process of influence from these instruments within the context of the general policies of the domestic legislative system is necessary for a better understanding of the output of legislative policymaking. The present study aims to fundamentally and rootedly investigate the challenges of Iran’s criminal policy regarding international instruments, using systems theory.

Employing a descriptive-analytical method, this research seeks to explore how the discourses governing the process of absorbing and integrating international norms direct and influence the output of domestic legislation within the framework of Iran’s general legislative policies. The findings indicate that although significant efforts have been made toward prevention, combating transnational crimes, and aligning domestic laws with international instruments, fragmented approaches to adopting these instruments—shaped by dominant discourses and varying bargaining power—have led legislative outputs toward inconsistency. The most notable manifestations of this include the enactment of ineffective laws, increased costs of joining the international crime-fighting process, and associated national and transnational challenges. To overcome these challenges, the study proposes the development of transparent legislative principles, the establishment of a legislative criminal policy council for technical oversight, and the maximum utilization of Islamic teachings to harmonize domestic and international laws.