UN Angle on Nuclear Deal

 

Dear Mr. President:

 

In recent days, senior members of your administration—including Vice President Joe Biden—have stated that your administration is negotiating a nuclear agreement with Iran that you intend to “take effect without congressional approval.”  Yesterday, at a hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Secretary of State John Kerry alluded to this same concept.

 

These statements stand in stark contrast to the repeated assertions made by your administration—including Secretary Kerry—that any deal with Iran would have to “pass muster with Congress.”

 

As you are also aware, there is significant and growing bipartisan support for Congress to consider and, as appropriate, vote on any agreement that seeks to relieve the very statutory sanctions imposed by Congress that were instrumental in bringing Iran to the negotiating table. 

 

There are now reports that your administration is contemplating taking an agreement, or aspects of it, to the United Nations Security Council for a vote.  Enabling the United Nations to consider an agreement or portions of it, while simultaneously threatening to veto legislation that would enable Congress to do the same, is a direct affront to the American people and seeks to undermine Congress’s appropriate role.

Please advise us as to whether you are considering going to the United Nations Security Council without coming to Congress first.
 

Sincerely,
 

Bob Corker                                                              
Chairman                            

 

Around the world, America’s influence depends on its ability to honor its commitments. Some of these are made in international agreements approved by Congress. However, as the authors of this letter must know, the vast majority of our international commitments take effect without Congressional approval. And that will be the case should the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia, China, and Germany reach an understanding with Iran. There are numerous similar cases. The recent U.S.-Russia framework [which included a U.N. Security Council resolution] to remove chemical weapons from Syria is only one recent example. Arrangements such as these are often what provide the protections that U.S. troops around the world rely on every day. They allow for the basing of our forces in places like Afghanistan. They help us disrupt the proliferation by sea of weapons of mass destruction. They are essential tools to the conduct of our foreign policy, and they ensure the continuity that enables the United States to maintain our credibility and global leadership even as Presidents and Congresses come and go.

                        

He emphasized that if the current negotiation with P5+1 [Britain, China, France, Germany Russia and the United States] result in a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, it will not be a bilateral agreement between Iran and the US, but rather one that will be concluded with the participation of five other countries, including all permanent members of the Security Council, and will also be endorsed by a Security Council resolution.

 

 

“We’ve been clear from the beginning: We’re not negotiating a, quote, legally binding plan.”

 

“We’re negotiating a plan that will have in it the capacity for enforcement. We don’t even have diplomatic relations with Iran right now.”

 

“The vast majority of international arrangements and agreements do not” require ratification by two-thirds of the Senate.

 

“And around the world today we have all kinds of executive agreements that we deal with… any number of noncontroversial, broadly supported foreign policy goals.”

 

“We are negotiating under the auspices to some degree of the United Nations. So, just as Congress has to vote to lift sanctions -- so Congress does have a vote -- so does the United Nations have to lift some sanctions at some point in time.”

 

 

The United States will not be “converting U.S. political commitments under a deal with Iran into legally binding obligations through a UN Security Council resolution.”

 

“[W]e would fully expect the UNSC to ‘endorse’ any deal with Iran and encourage its full implementation so as to resolve international concerns about Iran’s nuclear program.”

 

 

“[I]f we’re able to reach a joint comprehensive plan of action between the P5+1 and Iran, an endorsement vote would be held by the UN Security Council, and that should really come as no surprise given the permanent members of the Security Council are the ones negotiating the deal with Iran. 

 

“[G]iven that these sanctions were put in place through UN Security Council resolutions, they would need to – there would be action required to pull them back.  But of course the timing and how that would work is not yet determined. 

 

“We would expect to retain many of the UN Security Council provisions even under a deal with Iran.  Obviously, they’re not all related to nuclear sanctions.

 

“Any UN Security Council resolution would likely include elements that would be adopted under Chapter 7 as any decision to suspend or modify the sanctions that were previously imposed by the council under Chapter 7 would require new council action under the chapter. 

“Obviously, there would be action that would be taken by Congress at the appropriate time to roll back sanctions that are U.S. sanctions.

 

“[T]he Security Council would not impose new binding obligations on the United States that would limit our flexibility in any way to respond to future Iranian noncompliance.

“This [U.S.-Russia] framework was not legally binding and was not subject to congressional approval. It outlined steps for eliminating Syria’s chemical weapons and helped lay the groundwork for successful multilateral efforts to move forward.”

 

It “went to the U.N. to the Security Council vote.”