CSS Brown Bag Webinar: “Corona and the Future of the Iran Nuclear Deal”

On Thursday, 9 July 2020, the Center for Security Studies (CSS) held the CSS Brown Bag Webinar on "Corona and the Future of the Iran Nuclear Deal".

Névine Schepers, Researcher in the Swiss and Euro-Atlantic Security Team, discussed the current status of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and the importance of keeping it alive until the November US presidential elections. The corona crisis presented a small window of opportunity to pursue more extensive humanitarian trade with Iran, in particular through INSTEX, but this has unfortunately not been the case, exacerbating instead the issue of US sanctions and Europeans' inability to counter them. As outlined during the webinar, European signatories are faced with two urgent challenges: Iran's risk of non-compliance with nuclear safeguards and the US' push to extend the UN arms embargo on Iran. Both have implications far beyond the JCPOA but could also trigger its definitive end.