http://fortune.com/2018/10/03/un-us-iran-sanctions/
UN Court Orders U.S. to Lift Iran Sanctions on 'Humanitarian' Goods
UN’s Top Court Orders the U.S. to Lift Iran Sanctions
On “humanitarian” goods.
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By Natasha Bach
October 3, 2018
The UN’s highest court ruled in favor of Iran on Wednesday, ordering the U.S. to lift sanctions on humanitarian goods to the country.
The sanctions were re-imposed earlier this year when President Trump pulled out of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. But in July, Tehran filed a lawsuit against the U.S. at the International Court of Justice, claiming that the sanctions violated the 1955 Treaty of Amity between the two countries. While the ICJ’s ruling is binding, it has no enforcement mechanisms.
The court said that the U.S. must “remove by means of its choosing any impediment to the free exportation to Iran of goods involving humanitarian concerns,” citing humanitarian grounds in its ruling. It further stated that the assurances provided by the U.S. were “not adequate to address fully the humanitarian and safety concerns” raised by Iran, noting that the sanctions “may have a serious detrimental impact on the health and lives of individuals on the territory of Iran.”
The U.S. is ordered to lift sanctions on the export of the following items: medicines and medical devices; foodstuffs and agricultural commodities; spareparts, equipment, and repair services for civil aviation. The ruling also calls on the U.S. to ensure the granting of licenses and authorizations and not to restrict payment for these goods and services.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif had claimed the sanctions amounted to “psychological warfare,” intended to bring about regime change. Following Wednesday’s ruling, Zarif called on the international community to “collectively counter malign U.S. unilateralism,” and noted that it marked a “failure for sanctions-addicted USG and victory for rule of law.”
Nevertheless, it is unclear if the ruling will drive the Trump administration to make any changes to its existing policy. The U.S. had argued in court that the ICJ had no jurisdiction as the case concerned national security.
Washington is due to impose a new series of sanctions on Tehran in early November.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...-justice-orders-us-to-lift-new-iran-sanctions
International court of justice orders US to lift new Iran sanctions
Mike Pompeo indicates US will ignore ruling, after judges in The Hague find unanimously in favour of Iran
Saeed Kamali Dehghan and Julian Borger in Washington
Wed 3 Oct 2018 11.51 BST Last modified on Sat 6 Oct 2018 23.08 BST
Shares
3,900
Iran’s agent at the international court of justice, Mohammed Zahedin Labbaf, third left, listens to the ruling of the court on Wednesday. Photograph: Peter Dejong/AP
The UN’s international court of justice has reprimanded the US over its re-imposition of sanctions on Iran, ordering Washington to lift restrictive measures linked to humanitarian trade, food, medicine and civil aviation.
The Hague ruling, delivered on Wednesday, is a victory for Iran after it complained to the ICJ in July that the return to sanctions imposed by Donald Trump following the US withdrawal from the 2015 landmark nuclear agreement was in violation of the Treaty of Amity, a 1955 pre-revolutionary friendship treaty.
The US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, reacted by announcing the US was terminating the treaty, which the US signed with Tehran two years after orchestrating a coup to topple the elected prime minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh.
The latest major Trump resignations and firings
Read more
“This is a decision that is frankly 39 years overdue,” Pompeo told reporters. Legally it will take a year for US withdrawal to take effect, but the secretary of state, indicated that the administration did not take it seriously, claiming that Iran had been “ignoring it for an awfully long time”. He said the ICJ case had served the purpose of underlining the “absolute absurdity” of the treaty.
Pompeo insisted that there were appropriate exemptions in US sanctions for humanitarian transactions and aviation safety. He described the case that Iran had taken to the ICJ as “meritless”, and made clear that the US would ignore the court’s ruling. “I am disappointed the court failed to recognise its lack of jurisdiction,” said Pompeo.
The Tehran government “has attempted to interfere with the sovereign rights of the United States to take a lawful action necessary to protect our national security,” he said. “And Iran is abusing the ICJ for political and propaganda purposes.”
In bringing the case to the ICJ, Iran also argued that the US had violated the terms of the nuclear accord, endorsed by a UN security council resolution, by unilaterally pulling itself out of that agreement. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has verified 12 times that Iran has abided by the terms of that agreement.
Iran’s lawyers said at the court hearing in August that the US sanctions were blanket measures that had strangled the Iranian economy, affecting ordinary citizens in all aspects of their lives. Wednesday’s ruling, classified as a “provisional measure” before a final verdict that could take years to be issued, was given unanimously. It is binding and cannot be appealed but the ICJ has no means of enforcing it. Washington has argued that the issue is a matter of national security for the US.
It is too early to assess what the ruling’s impact will be in practical terms, given the EU’s backing for the nuclear accord. But the ruling puts on the record that the reimposition of sanctions is viewed as illegal by the international community.
Reacing to the ICJ ruling, the US ambassador to the Netherlands, Pete Hoekstra, said in a statement that “this is a meritless case over which the court has no jurisdiction”.
“The court considers that the United States, in accordance with its obligations under the 1955 treaty, must remove, by means of its choosing, any impediments arising from the measures” relating to humanitarian needs, medicines, foodstuff and agricultural commodities and civil aviation, the ruling said.
“To this end, the United States must ensure that licences and necessary authorisations are granted and that payments and other transfers of funds are not subject to any restriction in so far as they relate to the goods and services referred to above.”
The court ordered both parties to refrain from any action that might aggravate or extend the dispute.
Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, tweeted after the court’s ruling:
Ahead of the ruling, Zarif had said in a BBC interview that the US was driven by a policy of regime change and listened to the wrong people, which he said was leading Washington to make mistakes and have “delusional views” of the situation in Iran.
“The economic warfare that the United States and some of its regional clients are conducting against Iran is psychological warfare more than real economic warfare,” the Iranian foreign minister said.
Unlike the US, other parties to the nuclear deal including the EU, China and Russia have remained adamant that they want to keep the deal. Trump’s first set of sanctions was re-imposed in August. Those measures affected Iran’s access to dollars, gold and precious metals and the car-making sector, and sparked street protests.
They are to be followed by a set of additional and more stringent measures on 4 November, including an embargo on the imports of Iranian oil and sanctions on its banking sector.
The EU, Iran, China and Russia have set out a plan to sidestep these. European diplomats hope the proposed plan, known as a special purpose vehicle (SPV), will help persuade an increasingly reluctant Iran to stay inside the deal in the hope of rescuing its economy.
Europe must make Trump pay for wrecking the Iran nuclear deal
Simon Tisdall
Read more
Asked about this, Zarif said: “Prime minister May as well as President Macron and everybody else said that we are committed to see that Iran enjoys the economic dividends of the deal and the Europeans probably made better commitments than anybody expected. Then it was to translate those political commitment into mechanisms and I believe those mechanisms are going to be in place.”
He said the next step, which is “the most difficult and important”, is to see whether those mechanisms work. “We are going to be a little bit more patient but it doesn’t mean that our patience will never run out,” he said.
Asked about Trump’s offer to hold a summit with his Iranian counterpart, Hassan Rouhani, Zarif did not rule out a possibility.
“Nothing is impossible. The outcome … would be a photo opportunity and a two-page document,” he said, referring the document signed in the summer by Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un. “We have a 150-page document, which is the deal, which was negotiated word by word not only by Iran and the United States, but by six other powers. Having negotiated that deal and having been involved in this process for a very long time, I can assure President Trump that the US will not get a better deal.”
https://sg.news.yahoo.com/un-court-rule-iran-bid-halt-us-nuclear-024739297.html
UN court to rule on Iran bid to halt US nuclear sanctions
Jan HENNOP
AFP News3 October 2018
View photos
US President Donald Trump and Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani faced off at the UN in September. Tehran has hailed a ruling by the UN's top court ordering Washington to suspend sanctions on humanitarian goods, as a "clear sign" it is "in the right"
The UN's top court will rule Wednesday on Iran's bid to suspend crippling US sanctions reimposed by President Donald Trump after he pulled out of the international nuclear deal with Tehran.
The International Court of Justice in The Hague will hand down its decision at 0800 GMT in a case which threatens to plunge relations between Washington and Tehran to a new low.
Tehran dragged Washington to the International Court of Justice in July, saying the United States had breached a 1955 "friendship treaty" that predates Iran's Islamic Revolution.
Trump slapped a first round of sanctions on Iran in August after pulling out in May of a historic deal aimed at curbing Tehran's nuclear ambitions. A second round of punitive measures is due in November.
Iran called on the ICJ judges to order the immediate suspension of Trump's unilateral move to reimpose economic sanctions, a move that also alarmed Washington's EU allies.
During four days of hearings in late August, Iran's lawyers accused Washington of "strangling" its economy and its representative called the punitive measures "naked economic aggression".
Washington however forcefully told the court -- which rules on disputes between United Nations member states -- that it has no jurisdiction to rule on this case as it concerns a matter of national security.
Rulings by the ICJ are binding and cannot be appealed, but it has no way to enforce its decisions.
Wednesday's ruling is in fact a decision on so-called provisional measures ahead of a final decision on the matter, which may take several more years, experts said.
- 'Aggravating the dispute' -
However "if the court orders measures, they should be respected," Eric De Brabandere, a professor of international law at the University of Leiden, told AFP.
If the court decides it has jurisdiction, it will likely "declare that the parties should refrain from aggravating the dispute", but any steps beyond this remain to be seen, he said.
The 2015 nuclear deal saw Iran agree to limit its nuclear programme and let in international inspectors in return for an end to years of sanctions by the West.
But Trump pulled out of the deal in May, arguing that funds from the lifting of sanctions under the pact had been used to support terrorism and build nuclear-capable missiles.
Relations have plunged to a new low since Trump's election in 2016, even as the US president reaches out to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un over his nuclear programme.
Trump and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani faced off at the UN in September, with Rouhani denouncing leaders with "xenophobic tendencies resembling a Nazi disposition".
Despite their 1955 Treaty of Amity and Economic Relations, Iran and the United States have not had diplomatic ties since 1980.
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 next week.
UN Court Orders U.S. to Lift Iran Sanctions on 'Humanitarian' Goods
UN’s Top Court Orders the U.S. to Lift Iran Sanctions
On “humanitarian” goods.
0:04
/
1:16
You Might Like
5 Cool Campgrounds for Ultimate Glamping
×
By Natasha Bach
October 3, 2018
The UN’s highest court ruled in favor of Iran on Wednesday, ordering the U.S. to lift sanctions on humanitarian goods to the country.
The sanctions were re-imposed earlier this year when President Trump pulled out of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. But in July, Tehran filed a lawsuit against the U.S. at the International Court of Justice, claiming that the sanctions violated the 1955 Treaty of Amity between the two countries. While the ICJ’s ruling is binding, it has no enforcement mechanisms.
The court said that the U.S. must “remove by means of its choosing any impediment to the free exportation to Iran of goods involving humanitarian concerns,” citing humanitarian grounds in its ruling. It further stated that the assurances provided by the U.S. were “not adequate to address fully the humanitarian and safety concerns” raised by Iran, noting that the sanctions “may have a serious detrimental impact on the health and lives of individuals on the territory of Iran.”
The U.S. is ordered to lift sanctions on the export of the following items: medicines and medical devices; foodstuffs and agricultural commodities; spareparts, equipment, and repair services for civil aviation. The ruling also calls on the U.S. to ensure the granting of licenses and authorizations and not to restrict payment for these goods and services.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif had claimed the sanctions amounted to “psychological warfare,” intended to bring about regime change. Following Wednesday’s ruling, Zarif called on the international community to “collectively counter malign U.S. unilateralism,” and noted that it marked a “failure for sanctions-addicted USG and victory for rule of law.”
Nevertheless, it is unclear if the ruling will drive the Trump administration to make any changes to its existing policy. The U.S. had argued in court that the ICJ had no jurisdiction as the case concerned national security.
Washington is due to impose a new series of sanctions on Tehran in early November.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...-justice-orders-us-to-lift-new-iran-sanctions
International court of justice orders US to lift new Iran sanctions
Mike Pompeo indicates US will ignore ruling, after judges in The Hague find unanimously in favour of Iran
Saeed Kamali Dehghan and Julian Borger in Washington
Wed 3 Oct 2018 11.51 BST Last modified on Sat 6 Oct 2018 23.08 BST
Shares
3,900
Iran’s agent at the international court of justice, Mohammed Zahedin Labbaf, third left, listens to the ruling of the court on Wednesday. Photograph: Peter Dejong/AP
The UN’s international court of justice has reprimanded the US over its re-imposition of sanctions on Iran, ordering Washington to lift restrictive measures linked to humanitarian trade, food, medicine and civil aviation.
The Hague ruling, delivered on Wednesday, is a victory for Iran after it complained to the ICJ in July that the return to sanctions imposed by Donald Trump following the US withdrawal from the 2015 landmark nuclear agreement was in violation of the Treaty of Amity, a 1955 pre-revolutionary friendship treaty.
The US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, reacted by announcing the US was terminating the treaty, which the US signed with Tehran two years after orchestrating a coup to topple the elected prime minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh.
The latest major Trump resignations and firings
Read more
“This is a decision that is frankly 39 years overdue,” Pompeo told reporters. Legally it will take a year for US withdrawal to take effect, but the secretary of state, indicated that the administration did not take it seriously, claiming that Iran had been “ignoring it for an awfully long time”. He said the ICJ case had served the purpose of underlining the “absolute absurdity” of the treaty.
Pompeo insisted that there were appropriate exemptions in US sanctions for humanitarian transactions and aviation safety. He described the case that Iran had taken to the ICJ as “meritless”, and made clear that the US would ignore the court’s ruling. “I am disappointed the court failed to recognise its lack of jurisdiction,” said Pompeo.
The Tehran government “has attempted to interfere with the sovereign rights of the United States to take a lawful action necessary to protect our national security,” he said. “And Iran is abusing the ICJ for political and propaganda purposes.”
In bringing the case to the ICJ, Iran also argued that the US had violated the terms of the nuclear accord, endorsed by a UN security council resolution, by unilaterally pulling itself out of that agreement. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has verified 12 times that Iran has abided by the terms of that agreement.
Iran’s lawyers said at the court hearing in August that the US sanctions were blanket measures that had strangled the Iranian economy, affecting ordinary citizens in all aspects of their lives. Wednesday’s ruling, classified as a “provisional measure” before a final verdict that could take years to be issued, was given unanimously. It is binding and cannot be appealed but the ICJ has no means of enforcing it. Washington has argued that the issue is a matter of national security for the US.
It is too early to assess what the ruling’s impact will be in practical terms, given the EU’s backing for the nuclear accord. But the ruling puts on the record that the reimposition of sanctions is viewed as illegal by the international community.
Reacing to the ICJ ruling, the US ambassador to the Netherlands, Pete Hoekstra, said in a statement that “this is a meritless case over which the court has no jurisdiction”.
“The court considers that the United States, in accordance with its obligations under the 1955 treaty, must remove, by means of its choosing, any impediments arising from the measures” relating to humanitarian needs, medicines, foodstuff and agricultural commodities and civil aviation, the ruling said.
“To this end, the United States must ensure that licences and necessary authorisations are granted and that payments and other transfers of funds are not subject to any restriction in so far as they relate to the goods and services referred to above.”
The court ordered both parties to refrain from any action that might aggravate or extend the dispute.
Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, tweeted after the court’s ruling:
Ahead of the ruling, Zarif had said in a BBC interview that the US was driven by a policy of regime change and listened to the wrong people, which he said was leading Washington to make mistakes and have “delusional views” of the situation in Iran.
“The economic warfare that the United States and some of its regional clients are conducting against Iran is psychological warfare more than real economic warfare,” the Iranian foreign minister said.
Unlike the US, other parties to the nuclear deal including the EU, China and Russia have remained adamant that they want to keep the deal. Trump’s first set of sanctions was re-imposed in August. Those measures affected Iran’s access to dollars, gold and precious metals and the car-making sector, and sparked street protests.
They are to be followed by a set of additional and more stringent measures on 4 November, including an embargo on the imports of Iranian oil and sanctions on its banking sector.
The EU, Iran, China and Russia have set out a plan to sidestep these. European diplomats hope the proposed plan, known as a special purpose vehicle (SPV), will help persuade an increasingly reluctant Iran to stay inside the deal in the hope of rescuing its economy.
Europe must make Trump pay for wrecking the Iran nuclear deal
Simon Tisdall
Read more
Asked about this, Zarif said: “Prime minister May as well as President Macron and everybody else said that we are committed to see that Iran enjoys the economic dividends of the deal and the Europeans probably made better commitments than anybody expected. Then it was to translate those political commitment into mechanisms and I believe those mechanisms are going to be in place.”
He said the next step, which is “the most difficult and important”, is to see whether those mechanisms work. “We are going to be a little bit more patient but it doesn’t mean that our patience will never run out,” he said.
Asked about Trump’s offer to hold a summit with his Iranian counterpart, Hassan Rouhani, Zarif did not rule out a possibility.
“Nothing is impossible. The outcome … would be a photo opportunity and a two-page document,” he said, referring the document signed in the summer by Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un. “We have a 150-page document, which is the deal, which was negotiated word by word not only by Iran and the United States, but by six other powers. Having negotiated that deal and having been involved in this process for a very long time, I can assure President Trump that the US will not get a better deal.”
https://sg.news.yahoo.com/un-court-rule-iran-bid-halt-us-nuclear-024739297.html
UN court to rule on Iran bid to halt US nuclear sanctions
Jan HENNOP
AFP News3 October 2018
View photos
US President Donald Trump and Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani faced off at the UN in September. Tehran has hailed a ruling by the UN's top court ordering Washington to suspend sanctions on humanitarian goods, as a "clear sign" it is "in the right"
The UN's top court will rule Wednesday on Iran's bid to suspend crippling US sanctions reimposed by President Donald Trump after he pulled out of the international nuclear deal with Tehran.
The International Court of Justice in The Hague will hand down its decision at 0800 GMT in a case which threatens to plunge relations between Washington and Tehran to a new low.
Tehran dragged Washington to the International Court of Justice in July, saying the United States had breached a 1955 "friendship treaty" that predates Iran's Islamic Revolution.
Trump slapped a first round of sanctions on Iran in August after pulling out in May of a historic deal aimed at curbing Tehran's nuclear ambitions. A second round of punitive measures is due in November.
Iran called on the ICJ judges to order the immediate suspension of Trump's unilateral move to reimpose economic sanctions, a move that also alarmed Washington's EU allies.
During four days of hearings in late August, Iran's lawyers accused Washington of "strangling" its economy and its representative called the punitive measures "naked economic aggression".
Washington however forcefully told the court -- which rules on disputes between United Nations member states -- that it has no jurisdiction to rule on this case as it concerns a matter of national security.
Rulings by the ICJ are binding and cannot be appealed, but it has no way to enforce its decisions.
Wednesday's ruling is in fact a decision on so-called provisional measures ahead of a final decision on the matter, which may take several more years, experts said.
- 'Aggravating the dispute' -
However "if the court orders measures, they should be respected," Eric De Brabandere, a professor of international law at the University of Leiden, told AFP.
If the court decides it has jurisdiction, it will likely "declare that the parties should refrain from aggravating the dispute", but any steps beyond this remain to be seen, he said.
The 2015 nuclear deal saw Iran agree to limit its nuclear programme and let in international inspectors in return for an end to years of sanctions by the West.
But Trump pulled out of the deal in May, arguing that funds from the lifting of sanctions under the pact had been used to support terrorism and build nuclear-capable missiles.
Relations have plunged to a new low since Trump's election in 2016, even as the US president reaches out to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un over his nuclear programme.
Trump and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani faced off at the UN in September, with Rouhani denouncing leaders with "xenophobic tendencies resembling a Nazi disposition".
Despite their 1955 Treaty of Amity and Economic Relations, Iran and the United States have not had diplomatic ties since 1980.
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 next week.
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