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The International Court of Justice will make this week a long awaited decision on Iran's request to suspend the disabling sanctions imposed by the United States in the nuclear field.
Accusing Washington of strangling its economy, Tehran has asked The Hague tribunal to order Washington to lift the measures, reimposed after the withdrawal of US President Donald Trump from a 2015 multilateral agreement.
Despite its long enmity with the United States, Iran introduced the case as part of a "friendship treaty" of 1955, prior to the Islamic revolution in the country.
Washington has strongly declared to the court, which rules on disputes between United Nations Member States, that it has no jurisdiction to rule on this case in the area of national security.
The decision of Wednesday at 08:00 GMT – in the beautiful setting of the Peace Palace built in 1913 in the Dutch city – follows four days of hearing at the end of August.
The decisions of the ICJ are binding and without appeal, but it has no way of implementing its decisions.
"If the court orders measures, they must be respected," Eric De Brabandere, professor of international law at the University of Leiden, told AFP.
If the court decides that it is competent, it will probably be "declared that the parties should refrain from aggravating the dispute", but there is no further action beyond it, he said. declared.
The 2015 nuclear agreement saw Iran agree to limit its nuclear program and bring in international inspectors in exchange for the end of the years of sanctions imposed by the West.
But Trump pulled out of the deal in May, to the dismay of European allies, claiming that funds from the lifting of sanctions under the pact had been used to support terrorism and build missiles at home. nuclear capacity.
– & # 39; Economic War & # 39; –
At the UN General Assembly last week, Trump called the deal "horrible" and "partial".
During the ICJ hearings, Iran said the sanctions reintroduced in September are causing economic suffering to its citizens. US lawyers have argued that economic mismanagement is at the root of Iran's woes.
A second set of US measures is expected to hit Iran in early November, targeting its vital oil exports.
The experts said the Iran-US case was an important opportunity for the ICJ to decide on the issue of "economic warfare" – currently not designated as a use of force.
The case "could offer the court a sufficient legal basis to indicate a limit imposed by international law on the coercion exercised by the United States," AFP Geoff Gordon, an expert in international law, told AFP. Asser Institute of The Hague.
"International law, for reasons of power, has never formally recognized that economic warfare is a use of force prohibited by the United Nations Charter, although economic sanctions may have the same effects and worse than guns and bombs. "
But he warned that "the decision will likely be the occasion for escalating tensions".
Relationships have plunged to a new low since Trump's election, even as the US president reaches out to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on his nuclear program.
Trump and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani clashed with the UN last week, Rouhani denouncing leaders with "xenophobic tendencies resembling a Nazi disposition."
Despite their treaty of friendship and economic relations of 1955, Iran and the United States have no longer diplomatic relations since 1980.
The ICJ was created in 1946, after the carnage of the Second World War, to settle disputes between countries.
The Peace Palace in The Hague, home to the International Court of Justice
