Iran Sanctions - Foreign Press Centers

Iran Sanctions
Freeze the assets of over 80 named Iranian persons and entities, including Bank Sepah, and several corporate affiliates
of the Revolutionary Guard. (Entities named in annexes to each of the resolutions.)
Searches in international waters would require concurrence of the country where the ship is registered. (1929)
A Sanctions Committee, composed of the 15 members of the Security Council, monitors Implementation of all Iran
sanctions and collects and disseminates information on Iranian violations and other entities involved in banned
activities. A “panel of experts” is empowered by 1929 to make recommendations for improved enforcement.
Source: Text of U.N. Security Council resolutions 1737, 1747, 1803, and 1929. http://www.un.org. More
information on specific provisions of each of these resolutions and the nuclear negotiations with Iran is in CRS
Report. CRS Report RL32048, Iran: U.S. Concerns and Policy Responses, by Kenneth Katzman.
International Implementation and Compliance
U.S. and European/allied approaches had been gradually converging since 2002, when the
nuclear issue came to the fore. As of 2010 an unprecedented degree of global consensus has
emerged to pressure Iran. Many U.S. allies—including several neighbors of Iran, such as UAE
and Saudi Arabia—have joined a U.S.-led informal coalition called the “like minded countries” to
pressure Iran. Those outside the “like minded countries” grouping are generally complying with
the provisions of U.N. sanctions. This international adoption of sanctions is attributable to the
perception that the sanctions are not purely punitive, and in part to the growing concerns of U.S.
partner countries about Iran’s nuclear advancement. Some countries have joined the burgeoning
sanctions regime not necessarily out of conviction of the efficacy of sanctions but rather as a
means of perhaps heading off unwanted military action by the United States or Israel against
Iran’s nuclear facilities.
European Union and Other Western States
The European Union and other Western allies of the United States have been increasingly
aligning their sanctions with those of the United States. Among the latest actions, on November
21, 2011, in a concerted action with those taken by the U.S. Treasury Department (see above
under §311 of the Patriot Act), Britain and Canada announced they would no longer do business
with Iran’s financial institutions, including Iran’s Central Bank. Iran’s parliament subsequently
voted to downgrade relations with Britain, a move that, on November 29, 2011, contributed to the
overrunning of the British Embassy in Tehran by pro-government students, with at least the
partial apparent complicity of regime security forces. That attack prompted Britain to give all
Iranian diplomats 48 hours to leave Britain, and precipitated a European Union meeting on
December 1, 2011. At that meeting, the EU designated an additional 180 Iranian entities, mostly
those linked to the Revolutionary Guard, as subject to assets freezes and travel bans. One of the
entities is the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL).
Still, some EU countries criticized some aspects of the U.S. sanctions against Iran’s Central Bank,
discussed above, as de facto barring even legal trade with Iran, such as in automobiles, by
blocking acceptable payments mechanisms. A comparison between U.S., U.N., and EU sanctions
against Iran is contained in the chart below, although noting that there are differing legal bases
and authorities for these sanctions.
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