A/67/396 A. Legal framework 13. In its current form, the Al-Qaida sanctions regime requires all States to impose a range of measures, including asset freezes, international travel bans and arms embargoes on individuals and entities designated by the Sanctions Committee as being associated with Al-Qaida. 1 These sanctions typically result in a denial of access by listed individuals to their own property, a refusal of social security benefits, limitations on their ability to work and restrictions on their ability to travel domestically and internationally. They significantly interfere with the right to freedom of movement, property rights and the right to privacy in all its manifestations. The impact on both the designated person and his or her family can be severe, 2 leading one domestic court to characterize designated individuals as “effectively prisoners of the State”. 3 The reputational cost is incalculable. Moreover, as individual listings under the current regime are open-ended in duration, they may result in effective permanent designation. 14. The adoption of a measure that enables the Security Council to make listing decisions on the basis of nominations by Member States provides a ready means by which individual States can make executive decisions with far-reaching consequences, apparently unconstrained by domestic judicial review, or the international human rights treaties by which they are bound. Predictably, therefore, the regime has come under sustained and strongly worded criticism over the years. 4 The concerns of the international community were summed up in 2009 by the report of the Eminent Jurists Panel on Terrorism, Counter-Terrorism and Human Rights of __________________ 1 2 3 4 12-52254 See Security Council resolution 1989 (2011). See Her Majesty’s Treasury (Respondent) v. Mohammed Jabar Ahmed and others (FC) (Appellants) [2010] UKSC 2, [2010] 2 AC 534, para. 6; European Court of Justice (ECJ), Case C-340/08 R (M and Others) v. Her Majesty’s Treasury, Judgement 29 April 2010, ECJ (Fourth Chamber). Her Majesty’s Treasury (Respondent) v. Mohammed Jabar Ahmed and others (FC) (Appellants) [2010] UKSC 2, [2010] 2 AC 534, para. 60. See A/HRC/16/50, paras. 17-22 and 44; A/63/223, para. 16; A/65/258, paras. 55-57; Bardo Fassbender, “Targeted sanctions: listing/de-listing and due process”, study commissioned by the United Nations, Office of Legal Affairs (2006); Council of Europe, Parliamentary Assembly, resolution 1597 (2008), para. 7; 2007 Marty Report, document 11454 (Council of Europe, Parliamentary Assembly); I. Cameron, “The European Convention on Human Rights, due process, and the United Nations Security Council counter-terrorism sanctions”, report commissioned by the Council of Europe (2006); David Cortright and Erika de Wet, “Human rights standards for targeted sanctions”, (Sanctions and Security Research Program, January 2010); I. Johnstone, “The United Nations Security Council, counter-terrorism and human rights”, in Counter-terrorism: Democracy’s Challenges, Andrea Bianchi and Alexis Keller, eds. (Oxford, Hart Publishing, 2008); Josiane Auvret-Finck, “Le contrôle des décisions du Conseil de sécurité par la Cour européenne des droits de l’homme”, and Constance Grewe, “Les exigences de la protection des droits fondamentaux”, in Sanctions ciblées et protections juridictionnelles des droits fondamentaux dans l’Union européenne Équilibres et déséquilibres de la balance, Constance Grewe et al., eds., (Brussels, 2010); Dire Tladi and Gillian Taylor, “On the Al Qaida/Taliban Sanctions Regime: Due Process and Sunsetting”, 10 Chinese Journal of International Law (2011); Security Council Cross-Cutting Report on the Rule of Law, No. 3 (28 October 2011), available at www.securitycouncilreport.org; Anthony Aust, “The Role of Human Rights in Limiting the Enforcement Powers of the Security Council: A Practitioner’s View”, in Review of the Security Council by Member States, Erika de Wet and Andre Nollkaemper, eds.; Eric Rosand, “The Security Council’s Efforts to Monitor the Implementation of Al Qaeda/Taliban Sanctions”, 98 American Journal of International Law, 745 (2004). 5