International criminal justice and sanctions

This entry categorises the ways in which targeted sanctions and international criminal proceedings may overlap. Focusing on sanctions adopted by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and the practice of the International Criminal Court (ICC), it maps interactions happening at the level of arrest and transfer, asset freeze, and information sharing. The mapping enables the identification of some instances of convergence, as well as, more often, instances where there is mere parallelism or even divergence between the two enforcement mechanisms. Such fluctuations may have contributed to the failure of proposals to formalise the relationship between the UNSC and the ICC on this issue. In the current context of international relations, it is important to preserve the judicial independence of the ICC from UNSC political power dynamics if the cause of international criminal justice is to be advanced. Concurrently, UNSC sanctions resolutions should be designed in a manner that avoids creating conflicting obligations for states, thereby preventing them from cooperating swiftly with the ICC.