The United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted new, more transparent procedures for hundreds of individuals, companies and other entities that are under UN sanctions and want to be removed from blacklists. After the vote, Deputy US Ambassador to the UN Robert Wood assessed this as a historic moment, as the delisting procedure has not been changed for 18 years.
The resolution, sponsored by Malta and the United States, also authorizes the establishment of a new informal working group by the Security Council to examine ways to improve the effectiveness of UN sanctions.
Malta’s ambassador to the UN, Vanessa Frazier, said before the vote that the resolution was “a clear signal of this council’s commitment to due process.”
The resolution authorizes a new “point of contact” that will communicate directly with those seeking to be removed from sanctions lists and collect information from various sources to share with the Security Council committee that oversees sanctions and makes delisting decisions, Frazier said. It also requires that the reason for the committee’s decision be provided to the applicant.
After the vote, US Deputy Ambassador Robert Wood called the unanimous passage of the resolution “a historic moment,” noting that delisting procedures have not changed in 18 years.
“The international community demonstrates its commitment to values such as transparency and fairness in UN sanctions processes,” Wood said.
“Security Council sanctions are an important tool for deterring threats to peace and security, from the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction to countering terrorism and preventing human rights abuses,” Wood added.
He stressed that sanctions must be targeted and that there must be “robust and fair procedures for delisting when warranted.”
The United States opposes indefinite and punitive sanctions, and supports delisting and sanctions relief when warranted, Wood said. “But we are concerned about the increasing tendency for sanctions to be lifted prematurely, while the threats that caused them to be imposed in the first place still exist.”
He gave no specific examples, but the US and its allies, including South Korea and Japan, have fiercely opposed Russian and Chinese proposals to ease sanctions on North Korea, which regularly violates UN sanctions with its ballistic missile tests and nuclear development.
Russia’s deputy ambassador to the UN, Dmitry Polyansky, said Moscow considers Security Council sanctions “one of the most severe and robust responses to threats to peace. Therefore, they should be applied in an extremely cautious manner.”
“They should be flawless, well grounded and should be nuanced,” Polyansky said. “The use of such sanctions as a punitive tool is unacceptable.”
He stressed that the sanctions should reflect the real situation in the country and “help facilitate the political process.”
But he said the Security Council does not always follow this approach, accusing the West of increasingly encouraging the use of sanctions in recent years.
The Security Council may take measures to maintain or restore international peace and security under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter. Sanction measures, under Article 41, cover a wide range of enforcement options that do not involve the use of armed force. Since 1966, the Security Council has established 31 sanctions regimes, including in Southern Rhodesia, South Africa, the former Yugoslavia (2), Haiti (2), Angola, Liberia (3), Eritrea/Ethiopia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Cote d’Ivoire , Iran, Somalia/Eritrea, ISIL (Da’esh) and Al-Qaeda, Iraq (2), Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, Lebanon, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Libya (2), Taliban, Guinea-Bissau, Central African Republic, Yemen, South Sudan and Mali, Klix.ba writes.
