International Security and Development Cooperation Act (“ISDCA”)

Date issued: Aug. 08 1985

TURBOFAC Commentary (216 words)

Notes:

1) ISDCA is cited by OFAC as one of the sources of statutory authority for the ITSR because, at the time the 1995 embargo was enacted, "Section 505 of the International Security and Development Cooperation Act of 1985 ("ISDCA") was utilized as the statutory authority for the embargo, which gave rise to the Iranian Transactions Regulations." See https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/programs/pages/iran.aspx. The role of the statute is purely technical, as the President may prohibit imports with or without the authority of ISDCA (see e.g. the Crimea embargo, based solely on IEEPA). ISDCA just happened to be cited, in conjunction with IEEPA as authority for Executive Order 12959 (Prohibiting Certain Transactions with Respect to Iran).

Notably, ISDCA does not contain exemptions. In spite of this, OFAC does not consider the fact that part of the Iran embargo is based on ISDCA to mean that the IEEPA exemptions do not apply to provisions, e.g. 560.201, that appear to rely in part on ISDCA for their authority. It is possible that the technical reason for this is that there are procedural requirements embedded in ISDCA that have not been complied with, which may, as a technical matter, shift the legal basis of authority for the prohibitions initially based in part on ISDCA to IEEPA.