Search: extraterritorial sanctions

...4 June 2024, the US House of Representatives passed a bill to sanction ICC officials –‘the Illegitimate Court Counteraction Act‘– by a vote of 247 (including 42 Democrats) to 155. The sanctions would restrict entry into the US, revoke visas, and impose financial restrictions on anyone at the ICC involved in trying to investigate, arrest, detain or prosecute “protected persons,” or allies of the United States. It would also cover anyone who provides “financial, material or technological support” to those efforts. The bill is unlikely to pass the Senate and...

...enjoy in ‘safe havens’ around the world.  To remedy such blatant injustice, States, victim groups and practitioners are increasingly exploring opportunities to recover assets of perpetrators to be repurposed for reparations – an endeavour which has gathered increased momentum since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. For example, in 2022 Canada introduced legal reforms to enable the confiscation of funds frozen under sanctions, and their repurposing for the benefit of victims.  The EU has contemplated imposing a levy on interest made from frozen Russian assets to raise an estimated three billion...

...involvement of any State in this terrorist act would constitute a serious violation by that State of its obligations to work to prevent and refrain from supporting terrorism.” As CNN summarized: Last-minute diplomatic haggling deleted a direct reference to the threat of sanctions on the Syrian government, but the effect of Monday’s resolution is the same. The resolution is under Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter, which holds open the ultimate possibility of the Security Council considering the use of force with failure to comply. Russia and China simply would...

...by Resolution 60/1 that was adopted in 2025, to be reviewed in September 2026 and September 2027. In addition to the UNHRC, attention has also been directed toward the use of sanctions and accountability. These have resulted in several cases where former heads of state and military officials faced travel sanctions, resulting in them and their families being unable to travel to countries such as Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States. These and other steps at the international level have occurred when no genuine steps towards addressing accountability...

...than those countries with statutory restrictions on free speech that I have worked and organised events at in the past (see here, here, and here, and this collection on Jerusalem that followed a workshop). I am aware this is quite an indictment. As I explain below, the ‘adoption’ of the IHRA definition of antisemitism by many British universities was ideologically driven by the previous Conservative government which threatened financial sanctions against those institutions that refused to adopt it or raised concerns about free speech and academic freedom. The result has...

...motion calling for condemnation and recognition in respect of Nagorno-Karabakh. Similar resolutions calling for varying degrees of action, from sanctions to recognition, have begun to surface before governments around the world since a “Ceasefire Statement” brokered by Russia between Armenia and Azerbaijan came into effect on 10 November 2020, bringing a fragile end to renewed hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh that raged since 27 September 2020. The Ceasefire Statement, which allows Azerbaijan to hold on to areas of Nagorno-Karabakh that it seized during the conflict and requires Armenia to withdraw from several...

...of a regime of classified information that is at once far too sweeping but, for precisely that reason, largely incapable of having the teeth necessary to keep secrets. It is a classification regime that serves as nip for the cat, and a marker of access rather than a lockbox for necessary secrets. A better system – not likely in our lifetimes, presumably – would be far less ability to classify things, including a classification system clearly tied to a range of sanctions from loss of job to prison. But the...

...producing changes in state behavior. For example, states may not trust information produced by other states or international institutions. Epistemic institutions can take steps to increase the perceived legitimacy of information, but in some instances credible commitments may be more effective. Second, even with improved information, states may still lack an incentive to coordinate their behavior in the absence of the threat of sanctions. Certain public goods problems, like fisheries, raise this issue. Knowing what constitutes a sustainable fish catch does not by itself provide an incentive for a state...

...joint report, “Regulating Irregular Actors: Can Due Diligence Checks Mitigate the Risks of Working with Nonstate and Substate Forces?” The study explores due diligence and risk mitigation mechanisms in seven US partnerships with nonstate or substate armed groups in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria (from 2009 to the present), including provision of training, regular monitoring, establishing rules and standards, threatening or applying sanctions, and other mechanisms. There are a few important caveats to make up-front. Despite their legal-esque tenor, most of these measures were adopted by the US on a policy...

...exception.  While there are informal ways to try to “enforce” international law, for example, through economic sanctions, a cursory glance at the situation of Crimea, a victim of earlier Russian annexation, reveals that sanctions are not always capable of changing state behavior. While the crime of aggression (i.e., “crimes against peace”) were prosecuted already in 1945-46 before the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, the crime was added late to the International Criminal Court’s Rome Statute, in negotiations held after the Court was already operational and able to prosecute its other...

...war on terror.” Some critics accuse the Bush administration of being soft on Sudan for fear of jeopardizing the counter-terrorism cooperation. John Prendergast, director of African affairs for the National Security Council in the Clinton administration, called the latest sanctions announced by Bush last month “window dressing,” designed to appear tough while putting little real pressure on Sudan to stop the militias it is widely believed to be supporting from killing members of tribal settlements in Darfur. “One of the main glass ceilings on real significant action in response to...

...sanctions have so far convinced Vladimir Putin to cease the aggression and hostilities. Moreover, Russian aggression remained consistent despite its condemnation by 141 States of the GA, opening an investigation for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity by the ICC Prosecutor, the International Court of Justice´s provisional measures to immediately suspend the military operation of the Russian Federation and the ECtHR´s urgent interim measures calling on Russia to refrain from military attacks against civilians. On the contrary, the humanitarian situation deteriorates every day and civilian objects are common targets...