US created ‘industry of litigation,’ Iran tells top UN court

THE HAGUE: Iran accused the United States of creating an “industry of litigation” over terror claims against Tehran as it opened its bid at the UN’s top court on Monday to unfreeze billions of dollars in assets frozen by Washington.

The case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) comes as hopes fade of reviving a landmark deal -- from which former US president Donald Trump withdrew in 2018 -- that sought to tame Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Tehran took Washington to the Hague-based ICJ in 2016 after the US Supreme Court ordered some $2 billion in Iranian assets to be frozen, ordering the cash to go to survivors and relatives of attacks blamed on the Islamic republic.

These included the 1983 bombing of a US Marine barracks in Beirut which killed 299 people including 241 US soldiers, and the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia which left 19 dead. Iran’s representative Tavakol Habibzadeh told ICJ judges on Monday that the US ruling opened the way for “billions of dollars in compensation and punitive damages through default judgements.”

“By doing so the United States have created an industry of litigation against Iran and Iranian companies,” said Habibzadeh, who heads Iran’s Centre for Legal Affairs. Another lawyer for Iran, Vaughan Lowe, said Iran “denies that it is responsible for the injuries to those victims.”

“United States legislation doesn’t bother with proof or with attribution, or with responsibility,” he said. “”Never mind proving that Iran is guilty in any particular case... Sentence first, verdict afterwards.”