Core legal shortcomings of Obama’s Iran agreement

US President Barack Obama’s Iran nuclear agreement has been widely criticized on military or strategic grounds. For the most part, these pertinent critiques have been well-deserved.

 

In brief, as any informed observer must readily conclude, there is little doubt that the pact would sustain or perhaps even accelerate already-ongoing Iranian nuclearization.

 

The agreement also has major jurisprudential liabilities, substantial legal flaws that have yet to be fully recognized. In this connection, the most significant risks have to do with permitting Iran to enrich uranium after any designated period of years. All such permissions necessarily contradict the 1968 Non Proliferation Treaty, or NPT, especially those treaty provisions that obligate Iran, as well as other non-nuclear member states, to remain non-nuclear in perpetuity.

 

The US, we are often reminded, is a nation of laws. International law, moreover, is part of the law of the United States. Incontestably, this means, according to Article 6 of the US Constitution, that any US acceptance of the new Iran agreement must ipso facto violate American law.

 

Another overlooked legal violation concerns the Obama administration’s expressed unwillingness to abide by the 1948 Genocide Convention. More particularly, the American president refused to base his country’s negotiations with Iran upon an appropriately contingent expectation that Tehran’s leadership abrogate genocidal statements.

 

These conspicuous Iranian declarations regarding Israel are plainly impermissible. They constitute an egregious violation of international and US national law.

 

Read More: Core legal shortcomings of Obama’s Iran agreement – Opinion – Jerusalem Post