Security Council hears briefing of 1267 committee – no progress on implementing Kadi

Security Council 6043rd Meeting (AM), 15 December 2008

JAN GRAULS (Belgium), speaking as Chair of the Al-Qaida and Taliban sanctions Committee said that resolution 1822 (2008) -– a milestone in the life of the Committee established pursuant to resolution 1267 (1999) on Al-Qaida and the Taliban — had introduced several important innovations with regard to the listing and de-listing procedures, the notification of sanctioned individuals and entities, the posting of narrative summaries of reasons for listing on the Committee’s website and the review mechanisms. Those improvements had added to the transparency, fairness and clarity of the sanctions regime.

He said Committee members had committed themselves to transposing resolution 1822 (2008) in a new framework for the practical implementation of the new mechanisms before the end of the year. The new framework would form a solid basis for the next Chair. However, one could not ignore the international context in which those developments had occurred. Security Council sanctions regimes, increasingly under pressure, had recently been questioned, especially in light of the need for fair and clear procedures for listing, de-listing and granting of humanitarian exemptions. The Al-Qaida and Taliban sanctions Committee had not made significant progress in that regard, but everyone must remain committed to ensuring that more attention was given to those concerns.

Underscoring that terrorism remained one of the most serious threats to international peace and security, he said the sanctions regime against Al-Qaida, the Taliban and their associates was still one of the international community’s most important tools in fighting that menace, and it was important that Member States use it to the fullest extent possible by proposing the names of key actors for listing and complying fully with the sanctions measures. More must be done to ensure that the right individuals and entities were targeted. Due respect for fair and clear procedures could only increase the effectiveness of the sanctions regimes.

New article on SSRN on the topic:
Due Process and Sanctions Targeted Against Individuals Pursuant to Resolution 1267 (1999) – With an Added Note on European Court of Justice, Judgment in Joined Cases C-402/05 P and C-415/05 P, Yassin Abdullah Kadi and Al Barakaat International Foundation v. Council and Commission, September 3, 2008

Yale Journal of International Law, forthcoming

Johannes Reich (Univ. of Basel – Law)

This paper assesses the legal consequences of the framework established pursuant to Resolution 1267 (1999) and subsequent decisions by the United Nations Security Council imposing sanctions on individuals not necessarily associated with states or state actors. This shift in focus piercing the veil of statehood raises pressing issues of both international and domestic constitutional law, human rights law, and administrative law (including the emerging field of international administrative law) as the current system lacks basic guarantees of fair trial and effective remedy. After analyzing the current framework, this paper critically reviews two decisions evaluating this new generation of “targeted” sanctions imposed by the United Nations, namely the case regarding Youssef Mustapha Nada v. State Secretariat for Economic Affairs of the Swiss Confederation (SECO) [“Nada-case”] by the Swiss Federal Supreme Court and – in an added note – the case regarding Yassin Abdullah Kadi et al. v. Council and Commission [“Kadi-decision”] by the European Court of Justice. Based on this analysis, this paper argues for installing an independent administrative mechanism to review both the listing and de-listing decisions made by the Security Council as only a mechanism at the level of the United Nations can, at the same time, preserve the crucial framework of international implementation of collective measures and also validate the core principles of the rule of law.