US urges UN court to toss out Iranian case on frozen assets

“At the outset we should be clear as to what this case is about,” Visek said. “The actions at the root of this case centre on Iran’s support for international terrorism and its complaints about the U.S. legal framework that allows victims of that terrorism to hold Iran accountable to judicial proceedings and receive compensation for their tragic losses.”

The attack at the heart of the case was a suicide truck bombing of a U.S. marine barracks in Beirut in October 1983 that killed 241 military personnel and wounded many more. A U.S. court ruled that the attack was carried out by an Iranian agent supported by the Hezbollah militant group.

In 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered some $2 billion in assets of Iran’s state bank that had been frozen in the United States to be paid as compensation to relatives of victims of attacks including the Beirut bombing.

“Iran’s effort to secure relief from the court in this case — to in effect deny terrorism victims justice — is wholly unfounded and its application should be rejected in its entirety as inadmissible,” Visek told judges, saying that the dispute did not fall into the 1955 Treaty of Amity cited by Tehran as the basis for the court’s jurisdiction.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo withdrew the United States from the treaty last week, saying the decision was long overdue.

The little-known treaty regulating commerce between the U.S. and Iran was among numerous ones signed in the wake of World War II as the Truman and Eisenhower administrations tried to assemble a coalition of nations to counter the Soviet Union.

In court Monday, another State Department lawyer, Lisa Grosh, said Iran now uses a clause of the treaty as an “empty vessel into which it can pour any grievance” in order to bring it before the world court.

Iran is due to present its arguments later this week. If the case goes ahead, it will likely take years to reach a conclusion.

Rulings by the International Court of Justice are final and legally binding.

Mike Corder, The Associated Press

by Canadian Press

US urges UN court to toss out Iranian case on frozen assets

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