Search: extraterritorial sanctions

[Nabil M. Orina is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Centre of Excellence for International Courts (iCourts), Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen. He holds a PhD from City University of Hong Kong.] President Trump’s sanctions against the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (the Court), Fatou Bensouda and the Head of Jurisdiction, Complementarity and Cooperation Division, Phakiso Mochochoko have rightly attracted condemnation from states as well as academic commentary. The sanctions, which have now been revoked underlie a bigger issue in the relationship between the United States of America...

The first part of this two-part post reviewed the law that President Trump invoked in his executive order announcing a sanctions program regarding the International Criminal Court, and went through the different provisions of the order. This part will discuss some relevant issues not directly addressed in the order, and provide some views on what to expect going forward. A Modicum of Protection Some have questioned to what extent sanctions and prohibitions could reach outside groups that collaborate with the work of the ICC, such as non-governmental organizations. That is...

...use of secondary sanctions, e.g., against foreign financial institutions, could be seen as implying such an interpretation.  This is a notion that is sharply criticised by many in the developing world. One of the more strongly-worded objections was from Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan, who asked the US rhetorically “are we your slaves?” But many others have also expressed similar views. Indeed, at present, a majority of states in the world have both condemned Russia’s military acts as illegal and declined to participate directly in Western sanctions. As the...

The compendium has many useful recommendations and observations. Here are a few: It emphasizes the move towards using sanctions to address trafficking in wildlife products and natural resources; It highlights the importance of using sanctions to address transnational threats and new technologies; (Recommendation 146) It recommends using sanctions to better address existing and emerging threats on, for example, incitement to genocide, sexual violence in conflict, and gross violations of women’s rights; (Recommendation 132) It advocates the establishment of a Trust Fund for sanctions implementation assistance, a proposal originating from Jordan....

actions are a backlash from the ICC’s investigations in Afghanistan and Palestine. President Biden on April 2, 2021, ended the sanctions and the visa restrictions, thereby rescinding Trump’s orders. My reflection will focus on the pitfalls of such sanctions on individuals from ‘less-powerful’ states given the countries of origin of both Prosecutor Bensouda from The Gambia and Mr. Mochochoko from Lesotho. Bensouda was the main target of the sanctions given that she was granted approval in March 2020 by the Appeals Chamber of the ICC to investigate possible crimes committed in Afghanistan...

...that is not already within the President’s constitutional or delegated statutory powers. Crucially, the President has delegated authority under the various sanctions statutes to waive or lift those sanctions without getting further congressional approval. That is by far the most important U.S. obligation under the JCPOA. The idea of giving the president these powers to lift sanctions implies that he will seek out certain changes in behavior by the sanctioned governments and then use those promised changes (by say Iran, or in the recent past Burma) as a basis to...

...activists and lawyers but also of states and governments. This is a delicate balance that courts try to achieve both generally and in the extraterritorial context, and different courts can politically afford different levels of human rights generosity. Similarly, courts are reluctant to endanger the integrity of the human rights regime by diluting it too much for the sake of extraterritorial application. Both the need for flexibility and the need for regime integrity thus call for an incremental, modest approach to extraterritorial application. So, in sum, I agree with Austen...

[Chidi Anselm Odinkalu is Senior Manager for Africa with the Open Society Justice Initiative. He received his Ph.D. in law from the London School of Economics & Political Science and is a former Chair of Nigeria’s National Human Rights Commission.] The invocation of sanctions against senior officials of the International Criminal Court (ICC) by the Trump administration in 2020, has been the subject of considerable examination and controversy rightfully directed at the actions of the US government. First, temporarily blocked by by a US District Judge and now revoked by the...

also discussed overlap between sanctions regimes and the ICC, and ways to improve cooperation. For background on the main issues, see my blog here. There is little question that an expansion of the Ombudsperson’s mandate at least to more sanctions regimes, and better cooperation between criminal tribunals and the UN Sanctions regimes will improve the effectiveness of UN sanctions. Moreover, they complement the UN High Level Review of Sanctions which is coming to an end, in which a parallel effort to assess and improve sanctions regimes has taken place.  ...

I am pleased to announce that a new ILA Study Group on sanctions has been formed. Larissa van den Herik and I will be working together, with the support of a group of sanctions scholars and practitioners, to address questions of individualization, formalization and interplay in multilateral sanctions. Here are the three aims of the group: To evaluate the individualization and formalization of UN sanctions. What are the pros, cons and interconnections of developments towards individualized and rules-based conceptions of UN sanctions? How targeted must targeting be and what are...

...cargo into the North Korean ports of Nampo, Najin, and Wonsan between January 1 and May 30, 2018. According to U.S. calculations, those vessels had the capacity to unload nearly 1.4 million barrels of oil, nearly three times the volume allowed under U.N. sanctions. Even if they carried one-third of their load, they would have reached 500,000 barrels – the annual cap imposed on North Korea by UN sanctions. The sanctions could be made more effective through the following measures. Measures to Strengthen UN Sanctions There are four possible measures...

exceptions from the list, disclosing the referring state, disclosing reasons for listing and delisting, and potentially even extending the mandate of the Ombudsperson to other relevant sanctions regimes. The last suggestion in particular would be a fascinating development – an Ombudsperson with jurisdiction over other sanctions committees with listing powers would be the first step towards a generalized review process. The Security Council’s consolidated sanctions list has generated much attention due to the vast array of legal challenges the list has sparked over the past decade. Approximately 30 such cases...