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For over three decades, sanctions have been a consistent feature of United States policy towards Iran. Following the lifting of nuclear-related sanctions under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2015 and United Nations Security Council Resolution 2231, in 2018 the United States withdrew from the agreement through Executive Order 13846, reinstating previous sanctions. Consequently, Iran decided to bring its case against the United States before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) based on the 1955 Treaty of Amity. The present article analyzes the ICJ's substantive jurisdiction (Merits) over this case, as well as the political and legal implications of the United States' unilateral sanctions against Iran. The research employs an analytical methodology, utilizing library research and note-taking to collect data. The research findings indicate that the ICJ's opinion is based on the illegality of comprehensive economic sanctions imposed on national security grounds, and that the Court has substantive jurisdiction over this case. Furthermore, the findings reveal that the United States' unilateral and extraterritorial sanctions not only violate Iran's sovereignty, but also infringe upon the human rights of the Iranian people. The United States' sanctions policy aligns with liberal and realist theories of international relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under extraterritorial sanctions the sanctioning country extends its policies to trade of third countries with the sanctioned country. An example is President Trump's decision in 2018 to leave the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a multilateral agreement with Iran. In this article, I develop a game‐theoretic model to explain the emergence of extraterritorial sanctions. Such trade sanctions (i) do not arise when the harmful activity of the sanctioned country ("build a nuclear bomb") is verifiable even if monetary transfers are ruled out, but (ii) emerge if a second activity ("sponsor international terrorism") is not verifiable, and the sanctioning countries differ in their gains from trade with the sanctioned country, their harm from the non‐verifiable activity, and their cost from abandoning the international economic order. In the context of the US–Iran–EU conflict, I argue that the oil and gas fracking boom in the US together with former President Trump's ignorance of his international reputation are key factors in the emergence of extraterritorial trade sanctions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research examines the effects of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on business models, addressing a research gap in this area. The study focuses on a random sample of seventytwo small firms located in the Science and Technology Park of Tehran University. Data were collected through a questionnaire, and reliability and validity were assessed using Cronbach's alpha, Dillon-Goldstein's rho, convergent validity, and discriminant validity. The paired sample test was employed to determine the business model components influenced by the JCPOA. The results indicate significant positive differences in six components, including customer segments, customer relationships, key activities, key partners, cost structure, and revenue stream before and after the JCPOA. However, no significant differences were found in the value proposition, channels, and key resources. The findings suggest that the JCPOA has positively impacted business models overall. Notably, the need for significant differences in the value proposition contradicts previous research, highlighting the need for Iranian firms to adapt to new technologies. Conversely, improvements in customer segments and relationships can be attributed to lifting sanctions, allowing legal business transactions with Iranian companies and access to international markets. Channels and key resources showed no significant differences, implying the need for long-term planning and access to capital and distribution networks for Iranian companies. Key activities, key partners, cost structure, and revenue stream demonstrated significant increases, aligning with the ideas of previous studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Underground Empire: How America Weaponized the World Economy" by Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman explores the ways in which the United States has built and utilized global economic, financial, and technological networks for geopolitical purposes. The book highlights the control of infrastructures such as finance, submarine cables, data centers, and semiconductors as the basis of this underground empire. It discusses key events, including battles against terrorism and Iran, allegations surrounding Huawei's attempts to steal intellectual property, and Russia's isolation from the western economic system. The authors argue that the excessive use of economic coercion by the US comes at the cost of legitimacy and suggest redefining the scope of sanctioning tools. [Extracted from the article]

In July 2015, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) addressed the international community's concerns about Iran's nuclear program. The United States and the other P5+1 countries (the permanent members of the UN Security Council, plus Germany) agreed to lift the nuclear‐related economic and financial sanctions they had imposed. This article discusses how the US administration successfully formulated a nonproliferation policy to convince Iran to engage in nuclear negotiations in the period before the 2015 agreement and how diplomacy and sanctions were used as integrated tools to achieve the goal of nonproliferation. The article also focuses on the administration's agitating for more sanctions and isolation of Tehran from the international community while employing the two diplomatic methods. In implementing the strategy, it faced major domestic and foreign challenges. Nevertheless, the US nonproliferation strategy toward Iran achieved its primary purpose. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was the product of aggressive “secondary sanctions”—innovative sanctions that put economic pressure on the target state by punishing states and entities that engage in transactions with the target state. Prior to the JCPOA, the United States used secondary sanctions to “outcast” Iran—isolate it from the international community. After Iran entered into the JCPOA, these sanctions were removed as a reward for its cooperation. In May 2018, however, the United States withdrew from the JCPOA and re-imposed the secondary sanctions in order to “re-outcast” Iran. But unlike the pre-JCPOA outcasting regime, the re-outcasting regime was not imposed in response to any violation of international law by Iran; instead, it was imposed for solely policy reasons. As a result, members of the international community condemned the use of secondary sanctions as politically motivated and illegitimate. Although the use of secondary sanctions is a relatively new phenomenon, it has become increasingly more prevalent since the Iran sanctions regime, serving as one of the main sources of pressure against nations such as Cuba, North Korea, Russia, and Venezuela. In contrast to the growing prominence of secondary sanctions, however, the academic literature on the topic remains thin. This piece seeks to fill that gap. By comparing the pre-JCPOA outcasting regime with the re-outcasting regime, this piece provides a timely insight into the counter-productive consequences of imposing secondary sanctions for purely policy reasons. This piece highlights that without international law, secondary sanctions are viewed as illegitimate, which leads to defiance by states and creates a “chilling effect” that makes cooperation less attractive for the outcast. Thus, this piece proposes that the United States should only impose secondary sanctions in response to a state’s violation of international law in order to avoid undermining the power of these sanctions in the long run. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ideal of the European Union (EU) as a global peace and security actor is increasingly clashing with the reality of a multipolar world defined by militarised conflict, and a loosening of the formerly close trans-Atlantic relationship with the United States. European policy-makers have identified strategic autonomy as a possible remedy in the face of a growing number of internal and external security threats. This paper adds to the conceptualisation of strategic autonomy by contextualising its current usage and political genealogy. Empirically, European strategic autonomy is examined concerning the efforts to preserve the Iranian nuclear deal after the Trump administration had ceased US participation in May 2018. In particular, the paper assesses the European response to counter the re-imposed unilateral United States (US) sanctions against European individuals and entities by updating the so-called blocking regulation, and setting up a special purpose vehicle (spv) for facilitating trade with Iran. The results show that the European struggle toward achieving strategic autonomy has largely failed, but that it holds valuable lessons to approximate this ideal in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the Trump Administration's decision to withdraw from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2018 and the reimposition of economic sanctions, Iran witnessed public unrest that threatened the survival of the regime. Throughout its history, the Iranian regime has deployed various intricate internal and external strategies that have worked separately at times, and overlapped at others, to secure the regime against threats and guarantee its survivability. It is important to discover the strategies the Iranian regime has followed to survive the stifling crises it has faced since its establishment in 1979, in order to evaluate whether it will be able to survive its chronic economic crises. While the regime has purposely supported the Palestinian cause, strengthened its relations with non-state actors, and engaged in religious discourses on an external level, it has also achieved militarization and securitization, populated unelected governmental institutions with personnel loyal to its clerical and military institutions rather than qualified persons and pursued legitimacy renewal on an internal level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A longtime scholar of Chinese politics, Economy examines several case studies in which China under Xi Jinping's leadership has been intentionally or unintentionally shaping the regional and global order. Economy suggests that it is difficult to respond to China's strategic ambition because countries have distinctive approaches to China's economic coercion, and thus greater coordination is necessary. This is critical: especially when Economy argues that China is playing it smart in some policy areas, it remains unclear to readers why Beijing has sometimes acted, or reacted, to harm its strategic objectives. [Extracted from the article]

The United States withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on May 8, 2018, and subsequently reimposed a range of unilateral sanctions on Iran. Throughout mid-2020, the Trump administration sought multilateral support for renewed UN sanctions against Iran, but the Security Council rejected those efforts. In response, the administration moved to initiate snapback sanctions under the terms of the JCPOA and UN Security Council Resolution 2231. However, JCPOA participants and the Security Council largely rebuffed the administration's contention that it could activate the snapback mechanism, instead taking the position that U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA means that it is no longer a "participant state" as required to invoke snapback sanctions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article looks at politics in Iran in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. It examines preexisting factors that compounded the severity of the pandemic in Iran, including economic recession, a draconian system of financial and trade sanctions imposed by the U.S., and a population mistrustful of official directives. Also mentioned are the economic conditions in Iran, the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, and the Iranian government's response to the pandemic.

Iran’s nuclear programme had for more than a decade become a controversial issue between Iran and the West; it had even threatened to develop into a military confrontation between Teheran and its arch adversary, Washington. The issue was finally resolved in an agreement, after more than a year of negotiations, between the two sides in Geneva in July 2015. This was hailed as a ‘breakthrough’ and a ‘win-win’ for both parties. It is argued here that the nuclear deal has made Iran’s nuclear programme almost inoperable, and pointed out that many members of Congress are vehemently against the deal; the next administration may not honour it or may revise it. The high costs of sanctions against Iran to the sanctioning countries are also examined, with a comparison made between the meagre concessions that Iran will get and the huge concessions that the West will receive under the deal. Furthermore, Iran has acceded to very intrusive inspection of some of its military sites. It is contended that, if the Iranians hope the agreement will soon bring about the resolution of other thorny regional and international issues that exist between Teheran and Washington, they are very likely to be disappointed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The success of financial sanctions rests largely on the dominance of the US dollar and the correspondent banking system. Yet emerging trends could undermine Washington’s capacity to employ this tool. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Iran deal inspires new questions such as why has the agreement come about now? And can the parties create momentum to cooperate on other issues? In Europe's case, the overlooked actor may have been motivated by an overlooked element: potential energy cooperation to help escape Russia's gas monopoly. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article consider the current state of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also known as the July 2015 Iranian nuclear deal. Topics of discussion include the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) standard for Iran and the inspection regime, the U.S.'s withdrawal from the deal under the Trump administration and the effects of U.S. sanctions on the Iranian economy, and Iranian military officer Qassem Soleimani.