UK Committee Criticizes Implementation of UK Sanctions

The United Kingdom has been “far too slow” in imposing unilateral sanctions against human rights abusers and should appoint a senior official responsible for implementing sanctions policy, Britain's House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee said in a Nov. 4 report. The report, which was the committee’s second of 2019, makes several sanctions-related recommendations to Britain's Foreign Commonwealth Office and is critical of the country’s approach to sanctions. The committee asked for updates to its suggestions by May 2020.

Although the FCO’s minister said it is “legally possible” for the U.K. to unilaterally impose sanctions while still a member of the European Union, the minister has not done enough to begin that process, the committee said. The minister “was not able to tell us how the FCO plans to use these so-called ‘Magnitsky powers,’ the criteria on which individuals will be selected for sanctions, or the date on which the FCO would lay the relevant Statutory Instrument before Parliament,” the report said. The committee said the FCO has been slow in imposing sanctions against countries such as China and Russia.

The committee said the FCO “should explain why it has not yet used Magnitsky-style sanctions” in response to the “ongoing repression” in Hong Kong and Xinjiang, “what plans it has to do so, and how far these plans have progressed.” The FCO should also explain how it plans to coordinate with the EU on sanctions and still needs to lay out “the criteria for determining” sanctions.

The committee also said the government should “appoint a Senior Responsible Official with personal accountability to the National Security Council for devising and implementing sanctions policy,” calling it a “necessary step to ensure the cross-departmental coherence, and greater effectiveness, of the UK’s sanctions policy.”