Iranian Officials Bring Back Issue Of Pahlavi Family’s “Plundered” Assets

In yet another move to distract Iranians from Iran’s disastrous economic and political situation, the government has recently announced that it is pursuing the case of the assets that the last shah’s family allegedly “plundered” from the country.

But an arbitration tribunal dismissed the Islamic Republic’s case 20 years ago.

Amid celebrations marking the 44th anniversary of the revolution that deposed Mohammad Reza Shah and established the Islamic Republic, the government of President Ebrahim Raisi announced that the issue was back on the agenda.

The office of Raisi’s spokesman announced that an “impartial tribunal” is the only way to ascertain the assets and properties of the Pahlavi family and their origins.

Until now, legal actions to get back Iranian assets allegedly robbed by the Pahlavi family have failed due to obstructionism by “foreign powers,” the statement claimed.

There can be no doubt about the importance of investigating the plundering of Iran’s national wealth, something the Islamic Republic has been accused of doing in the past 44 years. But are the claims by the Iranian government that the issue must go to court valid? Not at all.

One of the agreements reached between Iran and the United States to resolve the crisis in their relations arising out of the November 1979 hostage crisis at the US Embassy in Tehran led to the creation of the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal (IUSCT) in 1981.

The Hague-based tribunal was given the exclusive right to rule on disputes between Tehran and Washington. It consists of nine members; three are appointed by each government and three members appointed by the six government-appointed members.

In a 120-page verdict issued on April 7, 2000, the tribunal rejected most of the Islamic Republic’s claims regarding the assets of the Pahlavi family - including Mohammad Reza Shah, his wife Farah Diba and his sisters Ashraf, Fatemeh and Shams - and closed the case.

The unresolved issues in Iran’s complaint are minor.

The Islamic Republic cannot resubmit its complaint to the IUSCT because the tribunal has already issued its final verdict. And it is unlikely that the tribunal would now rule in favor of Tehran on the unresolved issues.

The Islamic Republic also filed as many as 59 lawsuits by before Californian courts against former Queen Farah Diba, Shams and Fatemeh, but the cases were dismissed for lack of evidence.

The claims made by Islamic Republic officials on the 44th anniversary of the 1979 revolution about the Pahlavi family’s assets — including that the monarchs took their crowns with them when they left Iran — are pure fabrications.

What they say about the need for an international tribunal to rule on their claims are only for domestic political consumption and will have no legal consequence.