The Security Council’s 1267/1989 Targeted Sanctions Regime and the Use of Confidential Information: A Proposal for Decentralization of Review

From a due process perspective, the essential problem with the UN Security Council's targeted sanctions regime is the persistent lack of sufficient access to confidential material relied upon for the designation of targeted individuals. Despite the Security Council's efforts to amend the procedures of the sanctions regime, it is highly unlikely that this deficiency can ever be remedied within its present top-down structure. Therefore, this article proposes to decentralize the regime's designation procedure, to mitigate the problem of being unable to challenge or review confidential information and evidence, which underlies an individual's designation. Such an amendment would entail that the designation of a particular individual and the possible subsequent judicial review procedure would take place domestically, prior to a universal blacklisting by the UN Sanctions Committee. As a consequence, any confidential material relied upon could stay within the designating state, and would be shared only with courts and possibly special security-cleared advocates, within that domestic legal order. This would make it more acceptable for the relevant authorities to make such information available.