UK Trends and Developments Contributed by: John Binns, BCL Solicitors LLP
national events will prompt ministers in the UK and elsewhere to reflect on how sanctions are applied and expressed. We may have a broad consensus in the UK that the activities, connections, and finances of certain categories of people are to be treated as “wrong” or “suspect”, and that “the right thing” to do is to avoid dealing with them altogether. However, this consen - sus is as fragile as the categories are fungible. Cer - tainly, it does not compare to more long-standing (and democratically influenced) judgements from criminal or public international law, to which ministers often appeal when sanctions are deployed. On that basis, the “right thing” is to be mindful, while respecting and complying with whatever sanctions laws say from time to time, that the categories of peo - ple affected by sanctions are dictated by judgments of politics, not morality or law. In the UK today, these categories include a selection (arguably arbitrary, cer - tainly small) of people said to have been involved in corruption or human rights abuses around the world, alongside (for some purposes anyway) the entire populations of Russia and Belarus, most of whom cannot reasonably be blamed for anything. Tomor - row, we may be prompted, perhaps by changes in the US administration’s policies rather than our own democratic process, to take a different view entirely about these categories and people.
Such views, and changes in views, may reflect our own (and the population’s) moral judgements, or they may not. But as sanctions are, first and foremost, a political tool, the presence of contradictions, hypoc - risies, and selective judgments in them should not come as a great surprise. A specific combination of domestic and international events has prompted the UK government to expand the use of sanctions to target conduct and individuals it deems problematic. This approach warrants evaluation not only in terms of effectiveness but also in terms of its constitution - al legitimacy. From the government’s perspective, increasing the use of a legal framework that allows ministers to define problems and then decide whom to target and how to address them may self-evidently appear to be the right thing to do. From the perspec - tive of those whose votes helped put those ministers in those positions, there is no obligation to agree.
207 CHAMBERS.COM
Powered by FlippingBook