International Court of Justice allows Iran lawsuit against US to proceed

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled Wednesday that it has jurisdiction over a case regarding Iran’s attempt to recover assets that had been frozen by the US, allowing the suit to proceed.

In preliminary objections, the US had contested the ICJ’s jurisdiction on three counts: (1) that Executive Order 13599, which called for the freezing of Iranian assets, fell outside the scope of the US-Iran Treaty of Amity; (2) that the Treaty of Amity does not provide for sovereign immunity and thus the ICJ does not have jurisdiction to consider Iran’s claims of the US violating customary international law principles of sovereign immunity; and (3) that Iran cannot simultaneously contend that the Bank Markazi, its central bank, is worthy of sovereign immunity and fall within the meaning of ‘company’ as defined in the Treaty of Amity.

Additionally, the US raised two admissibility arguments. The US argued that Iran’s claims should be dismissed for abuse of process and unclean hands. According to the US, the fact that the underlying principles of the Treaty of Amity no longer existed and that Iran sponsors terrorism meant that the lawsuit should be dismissed.

The ICJ unanimously rejected the first jurisdictional objection, upheld the second, and determined that the third was not exclusively preliminary in character. The court also disagreed with the admissibility arguments, holding that the Treaty of Amity was still in effect at the time Iran initiated the lawsuit and that the alleged sponsorship of terrorism by Iran did not necessarily preclude the lawsuit. Therefore, the ICJ ruled that the court did have the jurisdiction to hear the lawsuit.

Iran also sued the US in the ICJ last year over US sanctions that affected Iran’s ability to import humanitarian goods.

Source: Jurist