UN approves more transparent procedures for individuals and entities to get off sanctions lists

UNITED NATIONS – The United Nations Security Council unanimously approved on Friday more transparent procedures for the hundreds of individuals, companies and other entities subject to UN sanctions and seeking to be removed from blacklists.

The resolution, jointly introduced by Malta and the United States, also authorizes the Security Council to establish a new informal working group to examine ways to improve the effectiveness of UN sanctions.

Malta’s Ambassador to the UN Vanessa Frazier told the council before the vote that the resolution is a “clear signal of this council’s commitment to fair trials.”

It authorizes a new “focal point” to directly engage with those seeking delisting and gather information from a variety of sources to share with the Security Council committee that monitors sanctions, which makes decisions on delisting, she said. And it requires that the reasons for the committee’s decision be given to the petitioner.

After the vote, U.S. Deputy Ambassador Robert Wood called the council’s unanimous approval “a historic moment” and said the delisting procedures have not changed in 18 years.

“The international community is demonstrating its commitment to values ​​such as transparency and fairness in the UN sanctions processes,” he said.

“Security Council sanctions are an important tool to deter a range of threats to peace and security, ranging from the proliferation of weapons and weapons of mass destruction to combating terrorism and preventing human rights violations,” Wood said.

But he stressed that sanctions must be targeted to be effective and that there must be “robust and fair procedures for delisting when warranted”.

The United States opposes indefinite and punitive sanctions and supports removing and easing sanctions when warranted, Wood said. “But we are concerned about a growing trend to lift sanctions prematurely while the threats that led to their imposition in the first place remain.”

He did not give 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. North Korea regularly violates UN sanctions with its ballistic missile tests and nuclear developments.

Russian Deputy UN Ambassador Dmitry Polyansky said Moscow operates on the premise that Security Council sanctions “are one of the toughest and most robust responses to threats to peace. Therefore, they must be applied with extreme caution.”

“They must be impeccable, substantiated and nuanced,” he said. “The use of such sanctions as a punitive measure is unacceptable.”

Polyansky stressed that sanctions should reflect the real situation in a country and “help facilitate the political process.”

But he said the Security Council does not always follow this approach and accused the West of increasingly encouraging sanctions in recent years.