Jurisdiction of Iranian courts to deal with civil lawsuits against foreign states

Abstract

The principle of immunity of state and their property from foreign state courts is a natural consequence of the adoption of the principle of equal sovereignty of states in the International law and the international community. The principle, except with the consent of a state and outside the exceptions generally accepted in international practice, prevents domestic courts to exercise jurisdiction over a foreign state or their property. However, some countries contrary to the exceptions have taken some steps to violate the principle of state immunity through legislative and judicial measures. In this regard, the Iranian government has been the subject of numerous lawsuits in Federal courts of the United States through which it has been sentenced in absentia to pay more than $ 12 billion. "The law of Jurisdiction of the Justice of the Islamic Republic of Iran to Deal with Civil Lawsuits against Foreign States" is countermeasures to deal with the government violated the immunity of the Iranian government or its officials. Regardless of the many conceptual objections on this law, the act is in place to respond to a political rival with strong political incentives and without approaching to the foundations and the concepts of immunity of the state and adopting a clear stance against it. Thus, despite the adoption of this countermeasure, unfortunately, the Iranian government lacks a coherent formulated policy on the subject of the state immunity and in particular on how to deal with the governments violated its immunity.