Analysis of the International Court of Justice's Reasoning Approach to Uphold the United States of America's Second Preliminary Objection in the Case of

Abdollahi, Mohsen; Ansari, Narges

doi:10.29252/jlr.2021.184870.1596

Analysis of the International Court of Justice's Reasoning Approach to Uphold the United States of America's Second Preliminary Objection in the Case of "Certain Iranian Assets"

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Mohsen Abdollahi

Narges Ansari

International Law Department, Faculty of Law, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran

10.29252/jlr.2021.184870.1596

Abstract

Regarding the “Certain Iranian Asset” case, the International Court of Justice faced five preliminary objections with respect to the jurisdiction of ICJ and admissibility of the case which were raised by Respondent. As the second preliminary objection, the United States requested the Court to dismiss as outside the Court’s jurisdiction all claims, brought under the sovereign immunity as customary international law. Iran relied on Article IV (2), Article X (1), and Article XI (4) of the Treaty of Amity to support its claim. However, ICJ upheld the second objection of the USA based on its interpretation in accordance with the Treaty’s object and purpose and also its finding in “Immunities and Criminal Proceedings Case” and “Oil Platforms Case”. In contrary to ICJ’s opinion, a logical relationship can be seen between the object and the purpose of the Treaty and the provisions which have been mentioned by Iran. Such a conclusion could be reached by analogy and deductive method as well as analysis of the separate opinions of judges.

Keywords

Analogy

Deduction

Iranian Assets Case

Rule of State Immunity

Treaty of Amity

Subjects