Iran versus US battle to hit UN’s top court

THE HAGUE: The UN’s top court said Thursday it will hold hearings next month in a bitter battle between Iran and the United States, after President Donald Trump reimposed sanctions on the Islamic republic.

“The International Court of Justice (ICJ), the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, will hold public hearings from Monday 27 to Thursday 30 August in the case” concerning Iran versus the United States, the tribunal said.

“The hearings will be devoted to the request for the indication of provisional measures submitted by Iran,” it added in a statement.Tehran filed its case with the ICJ last week calling for the judges to order the immediate lifting of the sanctions which they said would cause “irreparable prejudice.”

Iran maintained restoring the penalities, lifted under the landmark 2015 deal aimed at reining in Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, violated a decades-old treaty. Nuclear-related sanctions are set to be reimposed by Washington in two phases in August and November, and seek to bar European and other foreign companies from doing business with Iran and blocking its oil sales abroad. Iran argued in its filing to the court that the move would break a 1955 Treaty of Amity and Economic Relations concluded between the two countries before the Islamic revolution under the regime of the shah.