U.S. Court Issues Writ of Mandamus, Effectively Removing Organization from Terror List: In Re People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran
ASIL Insights, Vol. 16, Issue 34 (2012)
7 Pages Posted: 18 Nov 2012 Last revised: 3 Dec 2012
Date Written: November 16, 2012
Abstract
On September 28, 2012, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton revoked the designation of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (“PMOI”) and its aliases as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (“FTO”) and delisted the PMOI as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist under Executive Order 13224. The decision to delist came in the wake of a petition for a writ of mandamus filed by PMOI in response to the Secretary of State’s failure to make a final (judicially) reviewable decision on the organization’s FTO designation. In June 2012, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit had ordered the Secretary of State to make a decision on PMOI’s petition to be delisted within four months from the issuance of the Court’s opinion; otherwise, the Court warned that it would grant the writ to set aside the designation.
This Insight discusses the Court’s ruling and possible implications with respect to governments’ terror designations.
Keywords: Terror Designations, Delisting, PMOI, Writ of Mandamus, U.S. Secretary of State, FTO, Nada v. Switzerland, ECtHR
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