The International Court of Justice, which considers disputes between United Nations member states, is on Wednesday scheduled to rule on Iran's call for US sanctions to be suspended.

The ICJ's decision is unlikely to make a direct difference to the Iran-US dispute as it has no power to enforce its rulings – but could lead to deliberations on "economic warfare," which the UN does not currently designate as a use of force.  

Arguing before the ICJ in August, Iranian lawyer Mohsen Mohebi accused the US of "naked economic aggression against my country" according to the BBC.

"The US is publicly propagating a policy intended to damage as severely as possible Iran's economy and Iranian national companies, and therefore inevitably Iranian nationals," he added.

The case "may offer the court sufficient legal basis to indicate a limit under international law to coercion by the US," Geoff Gordon, an international law expert at the Asser Institute in the Hague, told AFP.

"International law, for reasons to do with power politics, has never formally recognized economic warfare to be a use of force as prohibited by the UN Charter, though economic sanctions can have the same effects and worse as guns and bombs."

Iran's sanctions complaint

Iran has asked the court in the Hague to order the US to lift sanctions reimposed after US President Donald Trump pulled out of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said the US must be held "accountable for its unlawful re-imposition of unilateral sanctions" when he announced the complaint to the ICJ on July 16.

Tehran claims the sanctions contravene the 1955 Treaty of Amity and Economic Relations and notes that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has stated that Iran is meeting its commitments under the JCPOA.

The US insists the court has no jurisdiction, and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo argued in August that Iran's claim was an "attempt to interfere with the sovereign rights of the US to take lawful actions, including re-imposition of sanctions, which are necessary to protect our national security."

A second wave of US measures is due to hit Iran in early November, targeting its oil exports.

If the court decides it has jurisdiction, it will likely "declare that the parties should refrain from aggravating the dispute," Eric De Brabandere, a professor of international law at the University of Leiden, told AFP.

Rulings by the ICJ are binding and cannot be appealed, but it has no way to enforce its decisions.

Iran-US tensions

Iran-US relations have plunged to a new low since Trump's election.

Trump pulled out of the JCPOA, a 2015 deal between Iran, China, Russia, Britain, France, Germany and the US which saw Iran agree to limit its nuclear program and let in international inspectors in return for an end to years of Western sanctions, in May 2018.

The US president argued that funds from the lifting of sanctions under the pact had been used to support terrorism and build nuclear-capable missiles. 

At the United Nations General Assembly last week, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani denounced the US sanctions as "economic terrorism." Trump labeled the JCPOA "horrible" and "one-sided." 

(With inputs from agencies)