THE HAGUE: The USA accused Tehran on Monday of getting “unclean fingers” because it fought an Iranian court docket bid to unfreeze billions of {dollars} earmarked by Washington for terror victims.
Washington stated Iran’s “help for worldwide terrorism”, together with bombings and airline hijackings, ought to rule out its case on the Worldwide Court docket of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague.
Iran dragged Washington to the UN’s prime court docket in 2016 over a US Supreme Court docket ruling that the $2 billion ought to go to victims of assaults blamed on the Islamic republic.
Iran stated the case breached a 1955 “Treaty of Amity” between Washington and Tehran signed earlier than Iran’s Islamic revolution.
Washington tore up that treaty final week after the ICJ in a separate case ordered the US to ease sanctions reimposed on Iran by US President Donald Trump after he pulled out of Iran’s 2015 worldwide nuclear deal.
“Iran involves the court docket with unclean fingers. Certainly, it’s a exceptional present of unhealthy religion,” Richard Visek, a US State Division authorized official, instructed the court docket.
“The actions on the root of this case centre on Iran’s help for worldwide terrorism… Iran’s unhealthy acts embody helps for terrorist bombings, assassinations, kidnappings, and airline hijackings,” he stated.
Visek additionally accused Iran’s “most senior leaders” of the “encouragement and promotion of terrorism” and “violation of nuclear non-proliferation, ballistic missile and arms trafficking obligations”.
Iran’s use of the 1955 treaty to lodge the case was an “abuse of course of”, he added.
The ICJ was arrange after World Warfare II to rule on disputes between United Nations member states. Its rulings are binding however it has no energy to implement them.
At Monday’s listening to, a 15-judge bench is listening to US arguments over whether or not the ICJ can take up the case below its strict guidelines governing its process.
The US Supreme Court docket dominated in April 2016 that $2 billion in Iran’s frozen belongings should go to American victims of terror assaults.
These included the 1983 bombing of a US Marine barracks in Beirut, during which 241 troopers have been killed, and the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia. In complete, the choice impacts greater than 1,000 Individuals.
Iran angrily accused Washington of breaking the 1955 treaty — though it was signed on the time with the pro-US regime of the Shah — and known as for the US “to make full reparations to Iran for the violation of its worldwide authorized obligations”.
A choice by the ICJ’s judges may take weeks and even months earlier than being made public.
However Monday’s showdown dangers deepening the Trump administration’s rift with worldwide justice.
Printed in , October ninth, 2018