The Hague: Judges at the International Court of Justice on Wednesday ruled that the UN body has jurisdiction to hear a claim by Iran to recover $1.75 billion in assets frozen by Washington, dismissing US objections. Iran had argued that sanctions imposed in May by the administration of US President Donald Trump violated terms of a 1955 Treaty of Amity between the two countries, which Washington has said it will back out of.
The US Supreme Court ruled in 2016 that Iran must give the cash to survivors and relatives of victims of attacks blamed on Tehran, including the 1983 bombing of a US Marine barracks in Beirut. At the last hearing on Iran’s appeal in October at the Hague-based tribunal, Washington said Iran has “unclean hands” and that its alleged support for terrorism should disqualify the case from being heard. The ICJ is the top court of the United Nations and was set up after World War II to resolve disputes between member states. Its rulings are binding and cannot be appealed, but it has no means of enforcing them.