Iran’s regime is excited that a court in The Hague appeared to take the Islamic Republic’s side in an attempt to “overturn US nuclear sanctions,” according to reports. Hassan Rouhani, the president of Iran, praised the ruling as a great victory for Iran and its people.
The sanctions had been put in place by the Trump administration, but the new Biden administration is still looking at how to both confront Iran and possibly lift some sanctions or return to the Iran deal.
While Iranian pro-regime media celebrated the ruling, France 24 notes that “Tehran dragged the United States to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) three years ago, saying Washington breached a 1955 friendship treaty between the two countries.”
Judges at the court rejected the US objections, and International Court of Justice President Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf said the tribunal “finds consequently that it has jurisdiction... to entertain the application filed by the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
However, this is just one part of a ruling that will take longer. France 24 notes that “After Trump pulled out [of the Iran Deal], Iran invoked the 1955 ‘Treaty of Amity,’ which predates the 1979 Islamic Revolution that overthrew the pro-US Shah and severed ties with the US.”
This is the second win for Iran in international courts.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has asked the Europeans to work more closely with Tehran, and Iran is also seeking closer cooperation with Turkey and China.
Iran seeks to use legal means to overturn US sanctions, while its own conservatives wonder if this approach will work. They don’t want to beg the West for help.
This is the crossroads Iran finds itself in. Bureaucracies in Europe move slowly, so Iran’s attempt at redress for sanctions could take years, or even decades. But by that time, history will probably have moved on.