The Precedential Value of the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal’s Awards and Decisions in the Development of International Law

The Iran-United States Claims Tribunal (IUSCT), throughout its operation, has successfully resolved a significant number of claims and disputes—including claims by nationals against the state and state-to-state disputes—within the sensitive legal and complex political milieus between Iran and the United States. Nevertheless, the Tribunal’s role in the international arena extends beyond this inter-state dimension: its awards and decisions, as widely acknowledged, have played a significant role in the development of law on a global scale, particularly in international arbitration, international investment, and international commercial law. A structured, analytical, and methodological study of the Tribunal’s impact on the development of law in the international arena necessitates an examination of its awards and decisions across various legal fields. These include contract law, international commercial law, and international law—particularly international investment law. The first step in such a study is to assess the status of the Tribunal’s awards and decisions in the international arena, particularly their precedential value, in order to ascertain the reasons for and mechanisms behind their influence on the development of law globally. This article, while clarifying that the awards and judgments of international courts and tribunals—including the IUSCT—are not generally binding precedent, seeks to demonstrate that these decisions may nevertheless serve as persuasive authority relied upon by other arbitral and judicial bodies on both procedural and substantive matters. The criteria for evaluating the nature and extent of this persuasive value are analyzed in this study. It is argued that the Tribunal’s rulings, as decisions rendered on diverse subject matters within the legal framework applicable to various other international commercial or investment disputes—and issued by an international claims tribunal with established external credibility and consistent internal jurisprudence— carry significant persuasive precedential value in the international arena.