The tentative deal announced Wednesday whereby Tehran will transfer about three-quarters of its nuclear fuel out of the country for enrichment in Russia came after nearly three days of talks between senior U.S. and Iranian officials. Even before those discussions, the face-to-face meeting this month between senior U.S. and Iranian officials in Geneva was much ballyhooed -- but not unprecedented. Since 1981, officials of the two countries have been quietly meeting in The Hague to resolve billions of dollars in claims arising from the Iranian revolution and the resulting rupture of diplomatic relations between the two countries.
The meetings are held under the auspices of the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal, which was established by the agreement that resolved the 1979 hostage crisis. While it has done important work, the tribunal has largely outlived its utility for both sides -- and the Obama administration could face a significant international legal challenge if the tribunal orders the United States to make large monetary payments to the Iranian government.
The tribunal behaves much like a court. Iran and the United States submit, brief and argue cases before nine judges: three appointed by each country and three third-country judges mutually agreed upon or appointed by a neutral authority. Its hearings, held in a converted hotel on a residential street, have allowed U.S. and Iranian legal advisers and their teams to speak directly on a range of issues.
When it was set up under the Algiers Accords, the tribunal was expected to resolve all outstanding claims in a few years. It has labored for nearly three decades, conducting more than 300 hearings and issuing more than 20,000 orders. The tribunal has made 600 awards resolving claims by nationals of the two countries, or by one government against the other, including more than $2.5 billion in awards to U.S. nationals or the U.S. government and roughly $1 billion to the Iranian government. It is still working on some of the most complicated cases: disputes relating to contracts for sales and services of military equipment produced by U.S. companies for Iran before 1979.
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