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Horizontal sanctions regimes: targeted sanctions reconfigured?
... Most of these sanction regimes include designations from DPRK and/or Iran. 63 Regrettably, our case studies evidence a number of contradictions of the EU as a global security actor. The influence exerted on the Iran episode contrasts with the negligible impact that its sanctions had on the far-off DPRK case, where Brussels has never been recognized as an interlocutor. ...
... Only recently has the EU implemented its own "horizontal" human rights sanctions regime, providing the legal basis for individual designations. With the adaption of this new regime in December 2020, alongside similar initiatives addressing cyberattacks and the proliferation of chemical weapons, EU member states have created the legal basis for sanctions addressing particular issues rather than behaviours linked to specific countries' governments(Portela 2021; von Soest 2019). Australia, Canada, Japan, and the United Kingdom have their own sanctions policies in place and regularly align with US and EU sanctions. ...
This chapter analyses the nature and effects of external pressure imposed on authoritarian regimes. Around three-quarters of all countries under United Nations, United States and European Union sanctions are authoritarian, and “democracy sanctions” that aim at improving democratic and human rights in targeted countries constitute the biggest sanctions category. Yet, authoritarian regimes represent particularly problematic targets as they more easily shield themselves from external pressure than their democratic counterparts do. Authoritarians have a tighter grip on the public discourse and the struggle over the meaning of sanctions. They often even use them to their own advantage, denouncing sanction senders as “imperialist” and blaming them for their economic woes. The chapter presents trends in the application of sanctions pressure against authoritarian regimes, reviews mechanisms of how economic and diplomatic restrictions work, and examines authoritarian targets’ attempts to engage in pressure proofing.
... Politically, the way these horizontal sanctions regimes 'ease' the unanimity requirement is that EU Member States are not required to name and shame a specific country, which can be sometimes a highly sensitive political decision, but instead target individuals and entities irrespective of their locations (Eckes, 2021;Portela, 2019Portela, , 2021bPortela, , 2021c. It is clear, however, that establishing such horizontal sanctions regimes does not necessarily mean that they will spread quickly: the case of human rights sanctions has demonstrated that, at least from the first call of the EP, Member States needed almost ten years to establish that regime. ...
Executive Summary This Working Paper explores the current legal basis and governance structures of the European Union's (EU) "external action plus". In our understanding, the notion of "external action plus" not only includes the foreign, security and defence policy, trade, sanctions policy, development cooperation or humanitarian aid but also EU sectoral policies with an external dimension. In line with this definition, this Working Paper presents both the traditional external action areas of common commercial policy, sanctions policy and development cooperation and humanitarian aid, as well as the external dimension of some internal policy areas, including competition, health and environment. Despite several Treaty amendments, the EU's external actions are still fragmented and competences are scattered throughout the two Treaties. The list of common objectives under Article 21(2) of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) or the dual role of the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (HR/VP) are clear attempts to overcome the "bipolarity" of EU external actions. The continued existence of different legal bases that enable the Union to act externally still represents a significant challenge for EU policymakers. ENGAGE_Europe @ENGAGE_Europe engage-eu.eu For More Information
... Horizontal sanctions regimes also display some continuity with regimes that combined a country label with a thematic focus, which can be described as "hybrid". 78 Examples pervade EU sanctions practice. Brussels set up a sanctions regime on listing indictees of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in a bid to support the work of this ad-hoc UN body. ...
In December 2020, the European Union (EU) rolled out a human rights sanctions regime, emulating the US Global Magnitsky Act. It constitutes the third horizontal sanctions regime adopted by the EU over the past three years. The organising logic of horizontal blacklists, almost alien to the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) until recently, fits well the targeted nature of the EU sanctions because it de-links the designation from an international crisis. However, it highlights the existence of a number of challenges that might potentially hinder the smooth application of the sanctions, or the overall success of the EU's policy approach. Three key issues with political implications are singled out: the overlap between horizontal and country-label listings, the non-enforceability of visa bans, and the partial nature of sanctions alignment with liked-minded countries.
Este trabajo expone la incidencia que ha tenido la Ley Magnitsky en la Unión
Europea, tras su aprobación en Estados Unidos, Canadá, Reino Unido y otros
países. Sin embargo, se plantean una serie de retos, como la omisión de la
corrupción en el contenido material de la ley europea, la unanimidad para aprobar
las sanciones, la falta de mecanismos para concretar las mismas y la ausencia de
participación de la sociedad civil.
This paper exposes the impact that the Magnitsky Law has had in the European
Union, after its approval by the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and other countries. However, there are a number of challenges, such as the omission of
corruption in the European "Magnistky" law, the unanimity to approve the sanctions,
the lack of mechanisms to specify sanctions and the absence of civil society's
participation.
The Regime of Restrictive Measures against Serious Violations and Abuses of Human Rights launched at the end of 2020 by the European Union is part of the Commission's objective to reaffirm the Union's firm commitment to promoting universal values and strengthening its leadership in this field. However, the first year of implementation of the regime casts doubt on its effectiveness, given the existence of legal loopholes that tarnish it.
Although the literature is increasingly interested in the parliamentary dimension of EU foreign policy, to this point no research has covered the role of parliamentarians in EU sanctions policy. This article argues that parliamentarians were successful in keeping the issue of a human rights sanctions regime on the EU's agenda and used all the tools at their disposal to push the EU foreign policy‐making machinery in the direction of adopting a new sanctions regime. This article does not limit itself to the study of the European Parliament but argues that parliamentary assemblies of different levels (national, cross‐level and European) are interconnected and worked together intensively on the adoption of the EU's human rights sanctions regime.
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