{"id":12942,"date":"2018-08-27T18:25:04","date_gmt":"2018-08-27T18:25:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=12942"},"modified":"2018-08-27T18:25:04","modified_gmt":"2018-08-27T18:25:04","slug":"iran-asks-uns-highest-court-to-suspend-us-sanctions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=12942","title":{"rendered":"Iran asks UN\u2019s highest court to suspend US sanctions"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nTHE HAGUE: Iran demanded Monday that the UN\u2019s top court order the United States to suspend nuclear-linked sanctions against Tehran, but Washington vowed to \u201cvigorously\u201d fend off the legal challenge.
The Islamic Republic launched a suit at the International Court of Justice over US President Donald Trump\u2019s decision to reimpose sanctions that were lifted in a landmark 2015 accord.
Trump says the sanctions are needed to ensure Iran never builds a nuclear bomb. But Iran\u2019s representative Mohsen Mohebi branded them \u201cnaked economic aggression.\u201d
His team of lawyers told the court in The Hague that the measures were already devastating Iran\u2019s economy and threatening the welfare of its citizens.
\u201cThe United States is publicly propagating a policy intended to damage as severely as possible Iran\u2019s economy and Iranian nationals and companies,\u201d Mohebi said.
\u201cIran will put up the strongest resistance to the US economic strangulation, by all peaceful means.\u201d
US lawyers are due to give their response in arguments before the court on Tuesday, with experts expecting them to challenge the ICJ\u2019s jurisdiction.
\u201cWe will vigorously defend against Iran\u2019s meritless claims this week in The Hague,\u201d said US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
He said Iran\u2019s lawsuit was \u201can attempt to interfere with the sovereign rights of the United States to take lawful actions, including re-imposition of sanctions, which are necessary to protect our national security.\u201d
ICJ judgments are binding, final and without appeal.
However, whether any decision will be implemented remains unclear, with both Iran and the US in the past ignoring ICJ rulings against them.
The US measures have added to Iran\u2019s economic woes, fueling strikes and protests across the country and political spectrum.
The sanctions target financial transactions and imports of raw materials, cars and aircraft among other sectors.
A second wave of punitive measures is due to hit the OPEC member state in early November, targeting its vital energy sector including oil exports.
Iran\u2019s lawyers said the sanctions would cause it \u201cirreparable prejudice.\u201d They urged the court to order the suspension of the sanctions pending a definitive ruling.
London-based lawyer Samuel Wordsworth, for Iran, told the court the measures were threatening Iranians\u2019 access to medicines as well as disrupting business deals.
The ICJ is expected to take a couple of months to decide whether to grant Tehran\u2019s request for a provisional ruling. A final decision could take years.
After years of diplomacy, the 2015 deal was signed by Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany.
Sanctions were lifted in return for Iran committing not to pursue nuclear weapons.
Trump, who took office in 2016, called it a \u201chorrible one-sided deal.\u201d
He said it \u201cfailed to achieve the fundamental objective of blocking all paths to a Iranian nuclear bomb.\u201d
Iran\u2019s lawyers said the US sanctions had disrupted tens of billions of dollars\u2019 worth of business deals with foreign companies.
Iran\u2019s currency the rial has lost around half its value since April.
International companies including French oil firm Total and Germany\u2019s Siemens have suspended operations in Iran since Trump announced the US withdrawal in May.
Trump said the sanctions would turn up the financial pressure on Tehran to come to a \u201ccomprehensive and lasting solution\u201d regarding its activities such as its \u201cballistic missile program and its support for terrorism.\u201d
The case is the second brought by Tehran against Washington since 2016. That year it brought a suit at the ICJ against the freezing of around $2 billion of Iranian assets abroad which US courts say should go to American victims of terror attacks.
Hearings in that case are due to start on October 8.
In both cases Iran is basing its claim on the obscure 1955 Treaty of Amity and Economic Relations, signed long before the country\u2019s Islamic revolution.
Despite the treaty, the two countries have not had diplomatic ties since 1980. Iran routinely refers to the US as \u201cthe enemy\u201d and its officials chant \u201cDeath to America\u201d at official functions.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

THE HAGUE: Iran demanded Monday that the UN\u2019s top court order the United States to suspend nuclear-linked sanctions against Tehran, but Washington vowed to \u201cvigorously\u201d fend off the legal challenge.The Islamic Republic launched a suit at the International Court of Justice over US President Donald Trump\u2019s decision to reimpose sanctions that were lifted in a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":12943,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12942"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12942\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}