Sanctions Regime

The background of the Sanctions Regime against Iran, dates back to the sanctions were imposed by the United States in November 1979 after a group of radical students seized the American Embassy in Tehran and took the people inside hostage. The mentioned sanction is considered as the first imposed sanction to Islamic Republic of Iran. From that time up to now, some of the other countries regulated some sanction rules against Iran, in addition the UN and EU sanctions.


What is the sanction and why does impose?

Sanction Regime

Sanction Regime

In general, from the legal perspective, sanction means a threatened penalty for breaching a law or rule and/or official authorization or approval for an action. As it is clear by the meaning, the philosophy of the sanction’s imposition should be the obedience of the law or the international community rules by the country in the circumstances when the international community is interested to seek to the amicable solution in contradiction with the resorting to each country’s armed forces.


What are the authorities regarding sanctions impositions against Iran?

Although the first sanction against Iran imposed by the US, up to now the US should not be considered as the only country which imposed sanctions against Iran. In this regard, the Sanctions Regime against Iran consists of all UN, EU and US sanctions.

UN Sanctions

UN sanctions through Security Council (SC) began after the starting date of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s atomic program on March 8th, 2006. The mentioned sanctions imposed based on chapter 7 of the UN charter specifically Article 42 which is about the sanction’s imposition by considering the threat of peace of the international community. All the ratified resolutions by SC is binding for the member states of the UN charter.

EU Sanctions

Regarding the EU sanctions, all the provisions should be ratified by the Council of the European Union (Council of Ministers). The first sanction by the Council imposed on February 7th, 2007 regarding the technologies and facilities which could help Iran in missiles technology as well as the atomic program. After that in later years, the Council imposed other sanctions in some useful fields such as carriage by the air and sea, banking transactions, purchasing the oil and investment in oil and gas industries.

Other related sanctions imposed by the countries

As was mentioned before, the United States of America is not the merely country that imposed sanctions against Iran. Other countries such as the United Kingdom and Canada imposed some sanctions as well. All the mentioned sanctions were imposed by virtue of the SC sanctions regarding the atomic program. But the US sanctions enjoy the vast variety that should be discussed by the present paper.


What are the fields of the imposed sanctions?

In a general view, all the imposed sanctions aimed to prevent Iran from its nuclear or atomic program as well as the ballistic programs and the revenues made from these programs by the Iranian government.

Therefore, the restricted areas are as below which all imposed by the UN, EU, and the US, except the last restriction that merely imposed by the US. Please bear in mind that all the following sanctions only removed by the UN and the imposed ones by EU as well as the US are still valid.

  • Missile/arms industry
  • Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps
  • Nuclear industry
  • Energy/petroleum industry
  • Banking
  • Central Bank of Iran
  • Shipping industry
  • International trade
  • Insurance
  • Foreign entities dealing with Iran

Furthermore, US president on May 8th, 2019 through an executive order declared that some new sanctions would be added against Iran in steel, iron, copper and aluminum industries. Therefore, it seems that Iran is only allowed to purchasing the oil due to humanitarian transactions and purchasing the goods which are not under bilateral sanctions, as US president said.


Are there any individuals against whom the sanctions imposed?

It is worthy to mention that, based on the areas of the imposed sanctions which was mentioned previously, there are lists of the individuals in relation with the areas that the sanctions imposed against them who are relevant to Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and/or Aerospace Industries Organization (AIO) and other authorities whose name explicitly mentioned such as Ebrahim Raeesi, Aliakbar Velayati, Gholamali Haddadadel, etc.


The Sanctions Regime against Iran also divides to the below topics particularly:

  • The Multilateral Sanctions
  • The EU Sanctions
  • The Unilateral Sanctions (by States)
  • The US Congress Sanctions