Further to today’s earlier blog post, please see a link to a more detailed post on the potential re-imposition of UN and EU Sanctions under the JCPOA here.
The Foreign Ministers of France, Germany and the United Kingdom (the “E3 Foreign Ministers“) have today released a statement that they are triggering the dispute resolution mechanism in relation to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (“JCPOA“), following Iran’s decision to no longer abide by the uranium enrichment limits of the JCPOA (see our earlier blog post on this here).
The United States has imposed additional sanctions on Iran in the wake of Iran’s missile strike on military bases in Iraq. On January 10, 2020, the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) announced that it had added 8 senior Iranian government officials and 17 Iranian metals producers and mining companies to the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List (“SDN List”). Concurrently, President Trump issued a new Executive Order, “Executive Order on Imposing Sanctions with Respect to Additional Sectors of Iran” (the “Order”), authorizing the imposition of secondary sanctions on certain transactions involving the construction, mining, manufacturing, and textiles sectors of the Iranian economy.
As reported in our blog post of Tuesday 7 January (see here), the EU Foreign Affairs Council met on Friday 10 January 2020 to discuss recent developments involving Iran and the situation in Iraq. The EU Foreign Ministers assessed the consequences of recent events and emphasised their support for the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (“JCPOA”), stating that it was “a key element of the global nuclear non-proliferation architecture.” However, Ministers called for Iran to…