MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 18th January, 2020) The recent move by the United Kingdom, Germany and France, commonly referred to as the EU big three, to trigger the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) dispute resolution mechanism is a risky step envisaging transferring the issue with the nuclear deal from political to the legal domain, while further development of the situation much depends on Iran's next steps, experts told Sputnik.
The initiative was announced on Tuesday with the big three stating that they had no choice but to do this in an attempt to bring Tehran back to full compliance with its JCPOA commitments. The mechanism is enacted in case one of the parties considers that the other does not comply with its obligations. If it is not possible to agree within the mechanism, the document provides for the right of the parties to stop fulfilling their own obligations, as well as the possibility of restoring sanctions against Iran.
Nikolai Sokov, a senior fellow at the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Nonproliferation, told Sputnik that the fact that the issue with the Iranian nuclear program was transformed into legal matter limits the flexibility of the parties in resolving the problem.
"It is difficult to predict what is going to happen now, but it is obvious that the launch of DRM [dispute resolution mechanism] is a risky endeavor � it transfers the issue into the legal domain whereas it would have been better to keep it as a political issue, which allows greater flexibility," Sokov stated.
According to the expert, after the launch of the mechanism, Iran can make the case that the western countries were first to violate the agreement and claim that it is not obligated to fully implement the commitments under the deal then.
"Iran's gain was economic and financial relief, but the US withdrawal and sanctions effectively meant that the west did not implement its obligations, at least not in full, so Iran is not obligated to implement its side of the deal to the full extent. This situation can be avoided at the level of political discussions, but unavoidably emerges at the legal level. In this situation the E3 may face a difficult choice � either admit that Iran had the right to reduce its obligations or accept that Iran has the right to withdraw from the JCPOA because the agreement is not being implemented. Neither option is acceptable to them, obviously," he said.
The United Kingdom, Germany and France voluntarily got trapped by deciding to activate the dispute mechanism, the real need for which is in question, according to the expert.
"Effectively, it is a trap, into which they stepped by their own decision. Much will now depend on what Iran decides, as the E3 can no longer fully control what happens. In my view, there was no need to launch the DRM because Iran has already announced that it would not reduce its obligations any further and because the International Atomic Energy Agency keeps its inspection rights, ensuring that Iran cannot secretly launch a nuclear weapons program. The situation was fragile but reasonably stable. That balance is in question now," he added.
John Carlson, the non-resident senior fellow of the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Nonproliferation, also stated that the UK-German-French initiative was risky and could lead to the end of JCPOA despite its original purpose to save the deal.
"The action by France, Germany and the UK in triggering the mechanism now is risky, and it is difficult to see what they hope to achieve. The worst-case scenario is that the dispute will be referred to the UN Security Council (UNSC) and UNSC sanctions will 'snap back' � this will be the end of the JCPOA. Snapping back will occur if UNSC does not agree on a resolution to continue the lifting of sanctions," he told Sputnik.
The expert noted that if the United Kingdom, Germany and France want to preserve the deal they should not refer the issue to the UNSC and cooperate with Iran in finding a solution to the crisis.
At the same time, according to Marc Finaud, the head of arms proliferation at the Geneva Center for Security Policy, there is little risk that the DRM will enter in its final stage, and the move by the E3 is rather designed to show Iran that Europe is ready to negotiate a joint solution.
"This is a message sent to Iran that the Europeans want to preserve the JCPOA and wish to find a common solution through negotiations, but also a message to the United States that the Europeans are putting some form of pressure on Iran to lead it to revert to the constraints on its nuclear program. The ultimate stage of the mechanism, a possible decision by the UNSC to re-impose UN sanctions, is only a virtual threat because Russia or China will unlikely accept such sanctions," Finaud said.
The expert added that constructive dialogue on preserving the JCPOA would not be possible without sanctions relief by the United States, as the crisis started with Washington's withdrawal from the deal.
"It is positive that negotiations can still take place within the framework of the JCPOA to find a common solution. However, since the current crisis started with the US withdrawal from the JCPOA, it is difficult to imagine a solution without some form of sanctions relief by the United States," Finaud stated, adding that Iran's decision to develop nuclear weapons could materialize in case of "re-imposition of full-scale UN sanctions by the UNSC" or direct military offensive against Iran.
Miles Pomper, a senior fellow at the Washington DC office of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies of the Middlebury Institute, in turn, told Sputnik that the possibility of the implementation of the mechanism's final stage � enrollment of UN sanctions � will depend on Iran's further actions.
"Whether or how soon this leads to sanctions is likely to depend on what concrete actions Iran takes. If it moves as slowly as it has, the EU is unlikely to want to move quickly to snap back UN sanctions. They want to preserve the deal, and both Iran and the European Union have an eye on the US electoral Calendar and have an incentive to defer a final break until after the US presidential election in November," Pomper pointed out.
According to the expert, the European countries should propose positive incentives to Iran in order to make it return to its obligations rather than "holding out the threat of negative sanctions."
The United Kingdom, Germany and France announced activating the dispute mechanism after Iran announced on January 5 that it would abandon the remaining portion of commitments under the JCPOA, specifically on acceptable levels of uranium enrichment. Meanwhile, Tehran aims to continue cooperating with the International Atomic Energy Agency and is ready to resume the implementation of its commitments in case the United States lifts sanctions and respects the interests of Iran envisaged in the nuclear deal.
The JCPOA was signed in 2015 by Iran, China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany, and the European Union. It required Iran to scale back its nuclear program and severely downgrade its uranium reserves in exchange for sanctions relief. In 2018, the United States abandoned its conciliatory policy on Iran, withdrawing from the JCPOA and hitting Iranian petroleum industries with sanctions.
