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Updated September 25, 2020
Iran's Nuclear Program and U.N. Sanctions Reimposition
U.N. Security Council Resolution 2231 (2015), which the
council adopted on July 20, 2015, implements the Joint
Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and contains other
provisions concerning Iran's nuclear program, Tehran's
development of missiles, and arms transfers to and from
Iran. The United States has threatened to invoke the
resolution's snapback mechanism, which requires the
Security Council to reimpose U.N. sanctions lifted pursuant
to Resolution 2231 and the JCPOA.
The JCPOA, finalized in July 2015 by Iran and China,
France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the
United States (collectively known as the P5+1), requires
Iran to implement constraints on its uranium enrichment
and heavy water nuclear reactor programs, as well as allow
the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to monitor
Tehran's compliance with the agreement. Prior to the
JCPOA, these programs caused international concern
because they could both have produced fissile material for
use in nuclear weapons.
Pursuant to the JCPOA, Tehran received relief from
sanctions imposed by the European Union, United Nations,
and United States. On the agreement's January 16, 2016,
Implementation Day, the Security Council terminated
sanctions imposed by three previous resolutions on Iran; the
council adopted the first of these resolutions (1996) in 2006
and the last (1929) in 2010. The sole operative Security
Council resolution concerning Iran's nuclear program,
Resolution 2231, also stipulates that the council, which has
been seized of the Iranian nuclear issue since 2006, is to
end its consideration of the matter in 2025. The resolution's
snapback mechanism will then cease to be operational.
In May 2018, President Donald Trump issued a
memorandum stating that the United States would no longer
participate in the JCPOA and would reimpose sanctions that
had been suspended pursuant to the agreement. Arguing
that subsequent efforts by the remaining JCPOA
participants, known as the P4+1, were inadequate to
sustain the agreement's benefits for Iran, the government
has undertaken some nuclear activities that exceed JCPOA-
mandated limits. Iranian officials continue to assert that
Tehran will resume implementing all of its JCPOA
commitments if the P4+1 does so.
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Although some Iranian nuclear activities exceed JCPOA-
mandated limits, other aspects of the country's nuclear
program still comply with those limits. Tehran has
continued to allow IAEA monitoring of Iran's JCPOA
commitments, which supplement Tehran's obligations
pursuant to its IAEA comprehensive safeguards agreement
and the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT).
The NPT, which Iran ratified in 1970, includes prohibitions
on obtaining or producing nuclear weapons.
Comprehensive safeguards agreements are designed to
enable the agency to detect the diversion of nuclear material
from declared nuclear facilities, as well as to detect
undeclared nuclear activities and material. (See CRS Report
R40094, Iran's Nuclear Program: Tehran's Compliance
with International Obligations, by Paul K. Kerr.)
Iran is also implementing the Additional Protocol to its
comprehensive safeguards agreement. Such protocols
increase the IAEA's ability to investigate undeclared
nuclear facilities and activities in nonnuclear-weapon states
by increasing the agency's authority to inspect certain
nuclear-related facilities and demand information from
member states. Pursuant to its JCPOA commitments, Iran is
implementing provisionally its additional protocol; Tehran
is to seek ratification of the protocol by the Iranian
parliament no later than October 2023. Iran originally
signed such an additional protocol in late 2003, but stopped
implementing it in early 2006.
The IAEA also continues to monitor JCPOA restrictions,
which supplement Iran's safeguards obligations and
prohibit Iran from engaging in a number of dual-use
activities which could contribute to the development of a
nuclear explosive device. Should the JCPOA be
implemented as envisioned in the agreement, most of its
nuclear-related restrictions will expire. In that case,
Tehran's nuclear program will be governed indefinitely by
Iran's obligations pursuant to the NPT, the government's
IAEA comprehensive safeguards agreement and Additional
Protocol, and the dual-use restrictions described above.
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In addition to its JCPOA-related provisions, Resolution
2231 imposes other requirements on Iran. For example, the
resolution prohibits certain arms transfers to Iran; bans all
Iranian exports of conventional arms until October 18,
2020; and restricts exports of missile-rated items to Iran
until October 2023. Despite lacking a direct connection to
the country's nuclear program, previous arms restrictions,
the first of which were imposed by Security Council
Resolution 1747 (2007), were part of a broad U.S.-led
approach of pressuring Iran to comply with relevant council
resolutions. (For more on the arms restrictions, see CRS In
Focus IFi 1429, U.N. Ban on Iran Arms Transfers and
Sanctions Snapback, by Kenneth Katzman.)
According to Resolution 2231, a JCPOA participant can,
after notifying the Security Council of an issue that the
government believes constitutes significant non-
performance of [JCPOA] commitments, trigger an
automatic draft resolution keeping sanctions relief in effect.
A U.S. veto of this resolution would both reimpose the
suspended sanctions and end expiration of the conventional
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