The Hague, Netherlands (AP) — On Thursday, the United Nations Supreme Court ruled Tehran to release nearly $2 billion in Iran’s central bank assets frozen by US authorities as compensation for victims of the 1983 Lebanon bombing. I rejected the legal proposal. Countries paying for attacks related to Iran.
By a 10-to-5 majority, the International Court of Justice said it had no jurisdiction to adjudicate Iran’s claims related to the Central Bank of Markazi.
World Court Vice President Kirill Gevvorzian said in connection with the bank that “the majority accepted the jurisdictional objections raised by the United States over the claims of the Islamic Republic of Iran”.
In a complex 67-page judgment, the World Court also found several other U.S. actions to seize assets from Iran and that Iranians in the U.S. violated a 1955 treaty between the two countries. , said compensation negotiations should be sought.If the number is not reached, it will have to return to the Hague courts for a decision. However, most cases focused on Bank Markazi and its frozen assets of $1.75 billion in bonds and accrued interest held in accounts at Citibank in New York. The court said it had no jurisdiction under the 1955 Friendship Treaty because the protections it provided did not extend to the central bank.
Lawyers from both countries who attended Thursday’s hearing did not comment on the verdict.
At a public hearing last year, Iran said the asset freeze was an attempt to destabilize Tehran’s government and violated international law.
Iran filed a lawsuit in the World Court in 2016 after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that central bank funds could be used to compensate for her 241 American soldiers killed in the 1983 bombing. A second explosion killed 58 French soldiers in the vicinity after a US base in Lebanon was bombed. Iran denies involvement, but a U.S. District Court judge found Tehran responsible in 2003. The judge’s decision said that Iran’s then ambassador to Syria named “members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard” and ordered them to instigate the bombing of the naval barracks.
At a hearing last year, the head of the U.S. legal team, Richard Visek, told judges that states have a legal, known as “dirty hands,” that states cannot sue for their own criminal conduct. He said the principle should be invoked for the first time.
But Thursday’s court ruling dismissed that defense.
Iran argued that the asset freeze violated the 1955 Treaty of Friendship, which promised friendship and cooperation between the two countries. The US and Iran have not had diplomatic ties since militant students hijacked the US Embassy in Tehran in 1979.
The judge ruled that the central bank’s frozen assets were government holdings, subject to a treaty signed by Washington in 2018 in response to an order from the International Court of Justice in a separate case that lifted some sanctions against Iran. We accepted the U.S. lawyer’s argument that it was outside.
Court decisions are final and binding.
