Pompeo: ‘United States is Terminating 1955 Treaty of Amity With Iran’
“This is a decision frankly that is 39 years overdue.”
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that America will terminate the 1955 treaty of amity with Iran after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) used the treaty to force the US to ease some sanctions against Iran.
This treaty “regulates and promotes economic and diplomatic ties between the two countries.” You can read the full text of it here.
From Fox News:
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled earlier Wednesday that the U.S. must lift sanctions that affect the import of humanitarian goods and products and services linked to the safety of civil aviation. Iran had alleged that the sanctions breach the 1955 bilateral agreement known as the Treaty of Amity, from when the two countries had good relations, that regulates and promotes economic and diplomatic ties between the two countries.
The ICJ, ruling from the Hague, said in a preliminary decision that the U.S. must “remove, by means of its choosing, any impediments arising from” sanctions that affect exports to Iran of medicine, medical devices, food, agricultural commodities and equipment necessary to ensure the safety of civil aviation. The U.S. had argued that the sanctions cannot be challenged at the ICJ because it is a matter of national security. The court’s president, Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf, said that the case will continue and the U.S. could challenge the court’s jurisdiction.
Pompeo blasted Iran’s lawsuit against America and claimed the regime attempted “to interfere with the sovereign rights of the United States to take lawful actions necessary to protect our national security and abusing the ICJ for political and propaganda purposes.”
Pompeo then said that terminating the amity treaty “is a decision frankly that is 39 years overdue” since officials should have taken this action after the 1979 Iranian revolution.
The secretary did find one silver lining:
“The court denied Iran’s attempt to secure broad measures to interfere with U.S. sanctions and rightly noted Iran’s history of non-compliance with its international obligations under the treaty of non-proliferation of nuclear weapons,” he said. He also said that there are existing exemptions for humanitarians purposes in the sanctions regime.
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Comments
’bout damn time…
I agree with Mr. Pompeo. Iran has been at war with the US for decades. No question. Full stop.
Why the F wasn’t this done 10 seconds after they took hostages at our embassy?
Because no reasonable person expected anyone to take it seriously.
Because we had a liberal appeaser for a President? Just a guess…
Jimmy Carter was President when our hostages were taken and THAT is the answer why it wasn’t immediately voided.
Perhaps subsequent Administrations did not move to cancel it because they were too positive that the Iranian Clerics would be removed from power.
The ICJ’s decision was totally bassackwards.
The 1955 Treaty of Amity was entered into with the then government of the territory now known as Iran, which was a Constitutional Monarchy led by the Shah of Iran. That government was violently supplanted by a theocratic government and the nation was renamed the Islamic Republic of Iran. The United States has no treaties with the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Therefor, the terms of the Treaty of Amity of 1955 are no longer binding upon either party, as one party no longer exists.
So, it was ridiculous to attempt to use the terms of the 1955 Treaty of Amity to bind the US to any action. It would be tantamount to require that the new owned of house should be bound to pay for an unsecured loan to a previous owner. This decision was totally political and has no basis in any existing international law. It should be ignored.
I agree wholeheartedly with your logic and opinion. But if the United States did not raise this issue with the court, the court would have been wrong to declare for the US on this account. If the ICJ works anything like American courts, I can only take action when appropriately moved by one of the parties. It cannot take unilateral action and declare a prima facie lawful treaty void unless a cause for voiding it is brought to its attention. This leaves me to wonder, just who the heck is arguing the US side of this dispute that they would apparently miss this no-brainer?
We would have to see the transcripts of the case to determine whether the US objected to Iran’s contention that the Amity Treaty was still binding. If Iran was using it a basis for forcing the US to halt sanctions, then for the US to fail to argue that it was not binding because the current government of Iran was never a party to the agreement, would be wholly incompetent.
And now for a round of “Spot the Weasel Words”—
He also said that there are existing exemptions for humanitarians purposes in the sanctions regime.
Well, that was easy.
Let’s see how long it takes for the Dems to start attacking this!
John Kerry, checkmate!
Wasn’t this treaty consummated with Shah Reza Pahlavi’s government? As opposed to the Islamic dictatorship that deposed Shah Pahlavani and that has been running Iran since 1979? Two separate governments. So, how is a treaty deemed enforceable, when the signatory government that was a party to the treaty doesn’t even exist, amymore?
Ridiculous.
ree-DONK-ulous!
When Bill Clinton’s term ended and George W. Bush was elected, NAFTA did not cease to remain in force. A change in government usually isn’t taken to mean that treaties are automatically broken, or for other examples, treasury bonds or agreements regarding border disputes, the abandonment of either courting financial or military calamity.
Why would the treaty still be in force? From the court’s point of view, because the US says so. The US not abandoning the treaty was the US’ own choice. I can’t easily find when the UN let the revolutionaries sit at the UN to represent Iran, but here’s the bottom line: if Iran had called the US out on it, say in the 1980’s, the court could have ruled the exact same way, and in my mind, would have. I don’t know, maybe Kerry told them to sue?
That was a change to the administration of the same government. The Shah’s government was overthrown and was replaced by not just new leaders, but by a new government (and a radically different government at that).
There’s a big fat difference between the moral case and the legal case. As soon as the US and the UN treated the mullahs as the legitimate government, the treaty was something Iran could have potentially sued over. (I think instead they’ve used 1955 as a rhetorical rallying cry and nurtured their political grievances.)
If they’d sued Reagan, he’d have simply officially dropped the treaty. It’s meaningless and only worth anything for the politics of “there goes Trump again, ignoring treaties and international norms”. (Tillerson and Pompeo should have done this some time ago, IMHO) But what is this court, except a body that deals with what’s on paper?
Here is the problem with your argument.
It is irrelevant if the US formally rescinded the treaty or not, because one of the principals no longer exists. In order for the treaty to be binding upon the US and/or the Islamic Republic of Iran, both of the existing parties would have to agree, formally, to amend the terms of the 1955 treaty to including the current Islamic Republic of Iran; essentially creating a NEW treaty.
Example; Acme bank provides an unsecured personal loan for John Smith, who lived at 123 Main St. Smith moves out of that address and Tom Jones moves in. Jone is not responsible for Smith’s loan, even though he now lives in Smith’s former residence, because the loan agreement was between Smith and Acme and Jones was no part of it. The same legal logic applies to the 1955 Treaty of Amity between the Government of the United States of America and the Shah’s government of Iran. The Islamic Republic of Iran government was never part of that agreement and neither the Us nor the IRI are bound by it.
Dear Mac45:
That is actually not how it works.
The issue is one of succession of states vs change of governments. The treaty was with the Iranian state. How Iran (or the US for that matter) governs itself is irrelevant to the existence or validity of the treaty. A treaty between the US and the UK, for example, continues in force regardless of whether there is a change of government. In the case of Iran, it has changed the name…changed its label so to speak..but the “state” continues to exist. This is why the US was able to successfully bring its case against Iran to the ICJ in 1980 under the very same Treaty of Amity for compensation for damages to US citizens arising from acts of the Iranian state following the revolution.
An interesting example of this has to do with the fall of the USSR. In about 1991 the USSR ceased to exist. A number of the constituent “republics” left (e.g. Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Georgia among others) and what was left was an entity called the CIS (Confederation of Independent States). One of those “independent states” was the “Russian Federation”. So, what happened? With the expiry of the USSR did the 5 permanant members of the UN Security Council reduce to 4? Of course not. The Russian Federation…a completely new entity from the USSR simply continued in the seat…including with the veto and all.
That’s how things work at international law. It’s quite different than the domestic law of contract.
Regards
I sort of am glad they waited this long, so President Trump could essentially be the one slapping down the UN.
I was disappointed by Reagan that he did not do the slapping the UN deserved decades ago.
Why not give aid and comfort to those who want to kill you? Because lefties and liberals believe it’s only right! US must give aid to iraniNs who threaten the US with death! Same with Israelis giving aid to those who vow to annihilate the Jews. To all those who believe in helping our would be murderers, I say Get Lost.
To those who say this treaty should have been terminated at the time the Embassy/Consulate was taken, I say not so fast.
The US brought action against Iran at the ICJ including for provisional measures as well as for a finding that Iran had violated international law and for compensation for expropriations.
Iran denied that the International Court of Justice had jurisdiction and refused to participate in the proceedings, but the ICJ found that it did have jurisdiction. The basis of jurisdiction was the Amity Treaty of 1955 which was found to be valid, in force and enforceable.
The US was completely successful in all the cases, including for compensation. The arbitration cases allocating damages/compensation to victims of the Iranian violation of international law went on fee several years and none of this would have been possible without the Amity Treaty.
Say hi to your friend Easy Chrissy. She’d better get a better lawyer.
IJC: “USA, we mandate that you restore Obama’s deal with Iran”
Pompeo: “Hold my beer”
I love it that Pompeo nuked these globalist bas.tards and their friends in Iran in one launch.
Iran can give $750M in cash to terrorists (what the banks estimate disappeared from the Obama cash drop), but not a dime for their own humanitarian needs. In the desert cities and towns, citizens are drinking mud in place of water. The infrastructure has collapsed, the reservoir construction rate has gone California…meaning zero.