Domestic Courts Approaches in the Enforcement of the Security Council Sanctions on Iran:Case Study of Singapore, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands

In the pre-JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) era, there were numerous actions brought in certain domestic courts relating to Iranian persons due to sanctions imposed by the United Nations Security Council on Iran. Among these, reference can be made to the judgements issued by the courts of Singapore, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. These actions provided opportunity to the courts to deal with the issues raised in connection with the restrictions and impediments imposed under the UN Security Council resolutions and the related domestic rules. These judgements suggest how to use the legal mechanism in the national courts in the benefit of the Iranian parties. These cases with no precise statistics regarding the number of the actions, have not been thoroughly considered by the Iranian legal community. The jurisprudence produced through these cases might be of assistance to the Iranian persons which are active in commercial and governmental sections in figuring out the approach taken by various States in dealing with the legal disputes relating to sanctions imposed on Iran, and then taking them into account in their future legal relationship with other States’ public and private sections.