Justice for Victims of Iranian Terrorism Act

Justice for Victims of Iranian Terrorism Act

(Sec. 2) This bill prohibits the President, until Iran has paid each judgment against it, from:

• limiting the application of specified sanctions on Iran or refraining from applying them; or
• removing a foreign person (including entities) listed in Attachments 3 or 4 to Annex II of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPA) from the list of designated nationals and blocked persons maintained by the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the Department of the Treasury.

These sanctions are the ones contained in:

• sections 4 through 7.9 of Annex II of the JCPA; and
• any other agreement related to Iran's nuclear program that includes the United States, commits the United States to take action, or pursuant to which the United States commits or otherwise agrees to take action, regardless of the form it takes, whether a political commitment or otherwise, and regardless of whether the agreement is legally binding or not.

A judgment is any final judgment entered by the courts of the United States or of the states that:

• relates to a claim brought against Iran or its political subdivisions, agencies, or instrumentalities and for which the court determined that none of them were immune under specified terrorism exceptions from the court's jurisdiction; and
• was entered between April 24, 1996, and the date of the enactment of this Act.

The JCPA is the agreement signed at Vienna on July 14, 2015, by Iran, China, France, Germany, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, and the United States, with the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, and all related implementing materials and agreements.

Written by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. All summary versions on Congress.gov