UN and EU sanctions

Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations constitutes the basis of sanctions by the international community. Under the provisions of this Chapter, the UN Security Council may decide to impose collective sanctions aimed at maintaining international peace and security. Once the Security Council decides on sanctions, the Member States are obliged, under international law, to implement these measures and to incorporate the provisions in their own legal systems.

The EU can decide on international sanctions within the framework of the Common Foreign and Security Policy. This may either be a matter of decisions to jointly implement UN sanctions or independent decisions on sanctions. Decisions are made when the EU Council of Ministers adopts a common standpoint. The measures that fall under the competence of the Community (such as trade restrictions or freezing the assets of certain individuals) are subsequently implemented in an EC regulation which becomes directly applicable in Swedish national law. The EC regulation can prescribe that certain duties must be undertaken by special competent authorities in each member country. Other measures fall under the competence of the Member States (such as arms embargoes) and are implemented via national legislation.

In recent years, the UN Security Council has made more extensive use of the sanctions instrument. In 1989, sanctions were only imposed against one country - South Africa. In 2007 there were about ten ongoing sanctions regimes in the UN targeting different countries. In addition to this there are two sanctions regimes that target international terrorism. Within the framework of the Common Foreign and Security Policy, we in the EU have also decided on our own sanctions against third countries in some ten additional cases.