Abstract

Crimes against national and state lands in Iran are a multidimensional and socio-legal phenomenon that, in addition to its criminal dimensions, is rooted in historical, structural, and discursive conflicts surrounding the concept of ownership and the limits of state intervention. The conflict between the customary perception of possession and exploitation with the formal legal order has provided the basis for the formation of many conflicts and criminal behaviors. This research, using the grounded theory method and a constructivist approach, based on in-depth interviews with 33 stakeholders including lawyers, judges, experts, and local exploiters, has extracted a conceptual model that shows that some legal and executive mechanisms unintentionally play a role in reproducing inequality and conflict. Effective background conditions include legislative ambiguities, multiple custodian institutions, weak administrative transparency, and the emergence of rent-seeking, and its consequences are manifested in the form of social distrust, increased litigation, and destruction of natural resources. The research innovation lies in proposing structural reform proposals, including the creation of an integrated land registration and monitoring system using new technologies such as blockchain. The findings, by filling the gap in social analysis in Iranian criminal law literature, emphasize the necessity of transitioning to participatory and preventive criminal policy.