With regards to JCPOA obligations, this remark by Elena Chachko on Lawfare caught me off-guard:
The Obama administration maintained that the JCPOA was not legally binding and, therefore, did not require Senate approval. The U.S. could stop implementing it at any time without violating its obligations under international law (see Jimmy Chalk’s post). In order to fulfill the United States’s commitment,, the administration relied on pre-existing authorities that gave the president discretion in the application of sanctions against Iran (see Jack Goldsmith’s post and lecture). Specifically, the administration utilized existing waiver authorities that previous sanctions legislation had granted to the president. Executive orders allowed the president to impose other sanctions and could be withdrawn with relative ease.
Which might take some of the stuffing out of my remarks on the matter in the beginning post of this thread. Still, it is an agreement, a matter of honor, and my remarks on Bolton’s intemperate proposal still do apply.
Elena goes on to note that there is no automatic actions triggered by a decertification by Trump. I think this is less important in the United States’ context than the entire JCPOA context: once the JCPOA is abrogated, parties which had sanctions on Iran prior to the JCPOA are not obligated to reimpose those sanctions.
If President Trump decertifies Iran’s compliance without solid evidence, we may find ourselves trying to sanction Iran by ourselves, which will be ineffective. Then we’ll try to bully the other parties to the JCPOA into re-introducing those sanctions.
And the United States’ reputation will take yet another hit, and our influence will continue to wane under this President’s amateur leadership.
