Iran continues resorting to international law to challenge the United States

Tabnak – Washington’s indifference toward international treaties and organizations and its opportunist viewpoint toward them is no more a secret for the analysts and observers. Nonetheless, in order to further prove the illegitimacy of US foreign policy approach, Iran is continuing to count on international legal bodies, especially the International Court of Justice.

The United States is confronting Tehran at the United Nations' top court over billions in frozen assets, in a case that could deepen the Trump administration's rift with international justice, AFP reported early on Monday.

The report further reminds that Iran had dragged Washington before the International Court of Justice in June 2016 to oppose a US Supreme Court ruling that the US$2 billion (S$2.8 billion) should go to victims of terror attacks blamed on the Islamic republic.

Court hearings started Monday with "Preliminary Objections" by the US, which seeks to argue that the ICJ does not have the jurisdiction to take up the case, according to the court's schedule.

Iran filed a complaint with the ICJ — the principal judicial organ of the United Nations — on June 14, 2016 over the freezing of billions of dollars in its assets either inside or outside of America under US court rulings.

The Iranian complaint invoked the "Treaty of Amity," signed between Iran and America in 1955. According to the complaint, Iranian assets had, under the treaty, been held "in a custodial 'omnibus account' with Citibank N. A. in New York by the Luxembourg-based international central securities depository Clearstream Banking S.A. to the ultimate benefit of “Bank Markazi" or Iran's Central Bank.

The 15-member jury of the ICJ — also known as the World Court — will hear Iran's oral arguments on Wednesday. A second round of hearings for Iran and the US is scheduled for October 11 and 12.

Monday's hearing of US objections against Iran's appeal comes a week after the ICJ, in a separate case, ordered the US to ease sanctions re-imposed after President Donald Trump pulled out of the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. Both the assets and the sanctions cases are based on the 1955 "Treaty of Amity" between Washington and Teheran that pre-dates Iran's Islamic revolution.

Last Wednesday the Trump administration announced it was not only tearing up the 1955 treaty but also that it was quitting the international accord relating to the UN top court's jurisdiction.

In this vein, National Security Adviser John Bolton said the US would no more be recognizing the jurisdiction of the UN court and would be withdrawing from the 1961 Optional Protocol and Dispute Resolution of the Vienna Convention, which established the ICJ.

The protocol establishes the ICJ as the "compulsory jurisdiction" for disputes, unless nations decide to settle them elsewhere.