For about the past few decades, the governments of the United States and Canada have sought, at the doctrinal level, to justify violations of state judicial immunity, particularly on the basis of terrorism; at the same time, legislative, executive, and judicial measures have also been adopted in this direction. This approach has affected, inter alia, the Islamic Republic of Iran and, in recent years, has led to the issuance of judgments against the Iranian state in the domestic courts of these countries; judgments that have also proceeded to the enforcement stage and resulted in the seizure of Iranian state assets.

With respect to the United States, Iran instituted proceedings before the ICJ on the basis of the Treaty of Amity. Some time after the Court rendered its judgment in that case, Iran brought proceedings against Canada on the basis of Article 36, paragraph 2, of the Statute of the Court. This latter dispute is not unrelated to the outcome reached in the Certain Iranian Assets case, since in that judgment the Court articulated a criterion for distinguishing sovereign from non-sovereign acts, a matter that has long constituted one of the central challenges in the law of state immunity. Moreover, in the course of assessing the notion of essential security interests, the Court also referred to the issue of the terrorism exception to state immunity.
Accordingly, a study of that judgment and of its findings concerning state immunity, as well as their potential impact on Iran-Canada case, is of considerable importance.