The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) accused Iran on Wednesday of violating its nuclear non-proliferation obligations and formally referred the country to the United Nations Security Council. The decision came from the agency's Board of Governors, a 35-nation body based in Vienna, after a referral resolution passed with 23 votes in favor, three against and eight abstentions, according to Brazilian news outlet G1. Initial reports did not detail the specific violation attributed to Tehran.

The referral arrives as the war between Iran and the United States escalates. According to Al Jazeera, US forces struck five Iranian oil tankers, while Tehran attacked ten ships and a base in Jordan, the largest wave of attacks on shipping of the entire conflict. Brent crude has climbed back above $100 a barrel. Iran is a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the 1968 pact that bars the spread of atomic weapons, and the IAEA, the UN's nuclear watchdog based in Vienna, is charged with verifying compliance.

What it means for Brazil

For Brazil, the first consequence shows up at the fuel pump. The war has already pushed the federal government to earmark 6.6 billion reais (about $1.3 billion) in subsidies for diesel and gasoline production and imports, explicitly blaming the Middle East conflict for higher prices, G1 reported. If the Security Council tightens penalties on Iran, or if Tehran answers with more attacks on shipping, oil is likely to stay expensive. That is a bad scenario for a country that imports part of the diesel and gasoline it consumes, in the middle of a presidential election year.

The interests at play

Tehran reacted angrily. In a statement released by its permanent mission to the UN and other international organizations in Vienna, the government called the resolution "biased" and "political" and said it "accelerates a greater erosion and the eventual collapse of the non-proliferation regime as a whole", according to G1. The case now moves to a divided Security Council: a formal penalty requires nine of the 15 votes and cannot hit the veto of any of the five permanent members, the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China. Washington and its European allies are pressuring Tehran amid the war, while Moscow and Beijing have historically resisted harsher sanctions against the country in the body.

The precedent is familiar. In 2006, the same Board of Governors referred the Iranian file to the Security Council, a path that produced a series of UN sanctions resolutions and, in 2015, the nuclear deal between Iran, the United States, China, Russia, France, Britain and Germany, from which Washington withdrew in 2018. In that earlier cycle, Brazil tried to mediate: in 2010, then president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva brokered the Tehran Declaration with Turkey and Iran, a nuclear fuel swap proposal that did not stop the new round of UN sanctions approved that year.

The case remains open. G1 kept its report updating on Wednesday, and none of the parties signaled the next step. The decision on whether to turn the IAEA referral into sanctions or another response now rests with the 15 members of the Security Council.