UK Trends and Developments Contributed by: John Binns, BCL Solicitors LLP
Doing the “Right Thing”? The Shifting Targets of Targeted Sanctions The UK remains at the forefront of using sanctions to achieve its foreign policy goals. But in a world where those goals can be inconsistent and where interna - tional consensus is fragile, can it continue to claim the moral high ground? The moral dimension Why (assuming it matters at all) should an ordinary citizen support the imposition of sanctions? Even in an era where values-driven foreign policy appears to be giving way to more nakedly self-serving agendas, governments rarely present sanctions as serving pure - ly economic or transitory objectives. Rather, they are presented as an expression of a nation’s values, of a desire to do “the right thing” on the international stage (and, on notable occasions, even domestically), and to respond to the misconduct of others. With nations, even allies, increasingly disagreeing on what ‘the right thing’ is and what constitutes misconduct, this begs questions about how such claims to legitimacy are maintained, and how decisions are made about what measures are imposed, and against whom. For the UK, the use of sanctions in 2025 raises these questions in a particularly acute way, against a back - drop of: • its withdrawal from the European Union (EU) (‘Brexit’), and the political instability that followed; • its continuing roles in the G7 and the UN Security Council, and as a global financial centre; • the disproportionate influence on global finance of its Crown Dependencies (CDs) and Overseas Ter - ritories (OTs); • the whiplash-inducing response of its political leaders to Russia following its 2022 invasion of Ukraine; and • its relationships with key allies, including the US and Israel, in an era of global instability. Democracy and distrust A key justification for many of the UK’s sanctions regimes, including against Russia, is the protection of democratic values. In moral terms, the citizens of the UK and its international allies might reason - ably be assumed to hold such values dear, and to
some extent, they influence the government’s abil - ity to speak with moral authority more generally. In a democratic state, the way misconduct is identified and dealt with (at least domestically) is defined by criminal laws that can be made and unmade by the legislature, which reflects the views of citizens through elections. On the international stage, the positioning of a democratic state against authoritarian or despotic governments, or against states where elections occur but are neither free nor fair, is often accompanied by a message that it is part of ‘our’ role (that of the UK, Europe, and “the West”) to defend democratic values. An analysis of whether sanctions achieve that aim might usefully start with a reminder that those values are generally held to include: • the protection of private citizens’ rights (subject to proportionate restrictions), including to privacy, free speech, and the free enjoyment of property; • the rule of law, including the principle that criminal penalties should be based on clearly foreseeable prohibitions and imposed only after a fair trial; • the separation of powers between a state’s execu - tive, judicial, and legislative branches, to protect against tyranny; and • the independence of the state’s law officers, press, and professions. “Targeted” sanctions Traditionally, sanctions were envisaged (and to an extent, they are seen in this way today) as outside the scope of such values, given their nature as part of the prerogative of states’ executive leaders – whether emperors, kings, or presidents – as an alternative to armed conflict by one state against another. In the modern world, their nature and impact are very dif - ferent, essentially imposing criminal prohibitions with reference to (though not necessarily against) parties associated with conduct and/or countries that are deemed to be problematic in one way or another. The UK’s journey from “comprehensive” to “smart” or “targeted” sanctions since the early 21st century has been closely tied to its role in international institutions, particularly the UN and the EU. The idea of imposing asset freezes and travel bans on named individuals and entities developed from a growing recognition at
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