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1 [1] (September 30, 2025)

handle is hein.crs/yujhtrger0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Congressional Reserch Service seinforming the legislative diebate since 1914 Updated September 30, 2025 Iran's 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. In August 2020, the United States invoked the resolution's snapback mechanism, which requires the Security Council to reimpose U.N. sanctions lifted pursuant to Resolution 2231 and the JCPOA. The U.S. attempt to reimpose sanctions failed. But France, Germany, and the United Kingdom invoked the snapback mechanism on August 28, 2025. The snapback process resulted in the sanctions' reimposition on September 27, 2025. 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 the provisions of seven resolutions: 1696 (2006), 1737 (2006), 1747 (2007), 1803 (2008), 1835 (2008), 1929 (2010), and 2224 (2015). Resolutions 1737 (2006), 1747 (2007), 1803 (2008), and 1929 (2010) all imposed sanctions on Iran. 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. Iran's Nuclear Program and Selected JC POA Provisions Beginning in July 2019, the IAEA verified that some of Iran's nuclear activities were exceeding JCPOA-mandated limits; the government has since increased the number of such activities. Tehran has also curtailed 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). (See CRS Report R40094, Iran 's Nuclear Program: Tehran 's Compliance with International Obligations, by Paul K. Kerr.) 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. Iran has also ceased 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 required to implement provisionally its additional protocol; Tehran is to seek ratification of the protocol by the Iranian parliament no later than October 2023. Prior to JCPOA implementation, Iran originally signed such an additional protocol in late 2003, but stopped implementing it in early 2006. Moreover, the IAEA no longer monitors 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. U.N. Security Council Resolution 2231 (20 15) and Snap back In addition to its JCPOA-related provisions, Resolution 2231 imposes other requirements on Iran. For example, the resolution restricted exports of missile-rated items to Iran until October 2023; other restrictions concerning Iranian imports and exports of conventional weapons expired on October 18, 2020. 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, 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 IF11429, U.N. Ban on Iran Arms Transfers and Sanctions Snapback, by Kenneth Katzman.)