Search: extraterritorial sanctions

...and (3) it is not clear why it should never be acceptable to tolerate a “great evil” in the name of peace. The essay then discusses two basic problems with his proposals for horizontal pluralization, focusing on his support for non-punitive collective sanctions: (1) in order to avoid being retributively unjust, collective sanctions would have to be imposed using the same liberal-legalist procedures that paralyze international criminal trials; and (2) only retributively unjust collective sanctions could effectively deter mass atrocity. As always, comments are welcome and would be most appreciated....

...further executions. Several states, including members of the European Union, imposed targeted sanctions on Iranian officials and institutions allegedly responsible for the crackdown. These measures included asset freezes, travel bans, and financial restrictions. Sanctions serve both expressive and instrumental functions: they publicly condemn unlawful conduct and raise the economic and political costs of repression. However, they do not immediately halt ongoing violence, nor do they resolve the underlying structural problem of enforcement when atrocity crimes are alleged. A politically significant development occurred on January 13, 2026, when the President of...

...of those seeking to threaten that stability. The Council had also established sanctions regimes, which played a critical role in stabilizing societies. There had been a good deal of discussion recently about whether to take steps to implement transparency in the targeting of sanctions. He wished to make those lists of targets as accurate as possible, and as transparent as was practicable. He looked forward to working with other Council members in the context of the “1267” Committee, to consider the proposals on the table and to ensure that sanctions...

dictator Muammar Gaddafi, has been brutally mistreated in the Libyan prison where he currently is being held, stepping up pressure to extradite him to The Hague. Former German Foreign Minister, Joschka Fischer, has a column on Project Syndicate about nuclear talks with Iran. Brazil calls on BRICS nations to rally around one candidate for the World Bank presidency. China calls on all nations to lift sanctions on Myanmar and the US has announced it will ease some sanctions as a result of new democratic reforms. Afghanistan’s Foreign Minister says that...

...redoubled our efforts to put financial pressure on those responsible for human rights abuses in Syria, including through three executive orders in the past year imposing increasingly severe sanctions. We have sought to ensure that Syrian nationals present in the United States are not forced to return to unsafe conditions, most notably by designating Syria for Temporary Protected Status under the federal immigration laws. We have strongly supported the work of the Human Rights Council and the Office of the High Commission for Human Rights in documenting and publicizing human...

...peaceful uses, not that in military programs. UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1540 requires all states to control nuclear materials and commodities (termed “related materials”) and to adopt and enforce civil and criminal penalties against the export, trans-shipment, and financing of transfers that would contribute to proliferation. But the resolution does not itself criminalize such activities, nor does it establish the robust jurisdictional and mutual assistance rules of the nuclear material treaties. Security Council resolutions imposing sanctions on North Korea and Iran establish quasi-criminal penalties (asset freezes and travel bans)...

...have caused harm, such as by leading to deaths at distribution points. To my knowledge, there is no direct precedent of this nature. However, the essence of the plea is in line with earlier resolutions and with the UN’s work to mitigate humanitarian suffering, even when caused indirectly. A striking example is the case of the UN comprehensive sanctions on Iraq in the 1990s. Comprehensive sanctions were blamed for causing widespread humanitarian harm, particularly to children. In response, the Assembly urged exemptions and adjustments, and its continued pressure contributed to...

...understandings, and derive from the morality of international behavior. The international community becomes most animated when it understands that a state’s activities amount to annexation, that they constitute territorial acquisition. Consider the following example: when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, the Security Council immediately imposed sanctions. While the delegates from Canada and Zaire referenced the illegality of the invasion and occupation of Kuwait, the ten states that sponsored Resolution 661 repeatedly held that sanctions were a direct response to Iraqi aggression and the use of force. When, days later, Iraq...

...system has collapsed. Lawyers, judges and prosecutors are also prime targets of militias. The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) has a mandate to investigate war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in Libya yet the prosecutor has issued only one arrest warrant since 2011: against Mahmoud el-Werfalli, a commander linked to the LNA, for extrajudicial executions. The UN sanctions have been underused: only eight people have been listed for individual targeted sanctions since the 2011 revolution, including two militia commanders and six people involved in trafficking. Attempts to...

...from vetoing any sanctions? My guess is that international opinion and pressure will be so overwhelming that Russia will go along with any punishment against the Syrian state, but that the punishment will be sadly weak. Sanctions are a fairly inefficient tool of statecraft, have little effect (link is to the JSTOR database; subscription required), and typically punish the civilian population more than political leadership (I’ll consider the problem of sanctions in a post later this week). So, for those of you who have faith in the UN and international...

...and liberal internationalists alike have appealed selectively to historical events and ideas as well as to legal decisions and standards to construct their case for the weakness and irrelevance (non-existence?) versus strength and importance of the international legal system in international affairs. One example is regularly countered by another. Mary Ellen claims that the existence of sanctions alone shows that actors who matter take international rules seriously. I suspect that Jack and Eric would retort that sanctions are yet another justification that the powerful clothe in some-time principle to further...

...policy began with the Bush Administration’s [Bush Sr.] decision in 1991-92 to judicialize the Pan Am 103 matter rather than to use force, in effect treating this Libyan act of terror like a domestic murder case, rather than the political-military attack that it was. Ruth remarks in her article that the Lockerbie trial chamber was organized under pressure of Security Council resolutions (SC Resolution 731 (1992) deploring Libya’s lack of cooperation with investigators, and SC Resolution 748 (1992) imposing sanctions on Libya): In response to the bombing, the Americans mobilized...