The New Era of Doing Business with Iran: Iran’s International Commercial Transactions and Global Security

On January 17, 2016, in a statement following his signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran, President Obama addressed that country’s people, stating that “yours is a great civilization, with a vibrant culture that has so much to contribute to the world – in commerce, and in science and the arts.” While the former U.S. President’s evaluation of the Iranian people’s greatness is indisputable, there are questions concerning doing business with Iran which transcend conventional legal issues and commercial problems. Given the juxtaposition of Iran’s duopolistic government * JD, Tehran University; LLM, Yale University; JSD, Yale University; MPA, Harvard University; Research Fellow, Archival Magazine; Attorney at Law. The author wishes to thank Shannon Niehaus for her support and constructive critique of the earlier version of the manuscript. The author is grateful to Zulfiyya Kamali for her indefatigable assistance in various stages of this writing. The author acknowledges with appreciation the generous assistance of Jake B. Sher, JD, Pace Law School 2016, in editing and preparing this article for publication. The author is also grateful to Grant Lally for his insights in discussions throughout the course of the article’s preparation. This work has been undertaken under the auspices of Archival Magazine and Garza and Harris Ltd.