Iran takes Canada to UN court over civil damages claims

Iran has filed a complaint against Canada at the United Nations’s top court, accusing the North American country of violating its “international obligations” by allowing people to seek civil damages against Tehran. The International Court of Justice — known as the World Court — announced the case on Wednesday, saying that Iran is asserting a violation of its sovereign immunity, which generally shields states from civil lawsuits in foreign jurisdictions. Iran “requests the Court to adjudge and declare that ‘by failing to respect the immunities of Iran and its property, Canada has violated its international obligations'”, the ICJ said. Last year, a Canadian court awarded 107 million Canadian dollars ($84m) to the families of six victims who were killed when Iranian forces shot down a Ukraine International Airlines flight near Tehran in January 2020. The same judge — Justice Edward Belobaba of Ontario’s Superior Court — had labelled the incident an “act of terrorism” months earlier, a ruling Iran rejected as “shameful”. Iranian officials have said the shooting of the plane was an accident caused by “human error” in operating a surface-to-air defence system. Story has more.<br/>