list of countries currently under us sanctions

#LIST OF COUNTRIES CURRENTLY UNDER US SANCTIONS CODE#

In addition to the above statutes, Congress has from time to time issued additional legislation with respect to sanctions and foreign policy that either authorises or mandates the President or the US Department of the Treasury to impose certain sanctions.

Some examples of the President’s exercise of power under the UNPA include President Reagan’s imposition of sanctions in response to apartheid in South Africa in 1985 and President Clinton’s imposition of sanctions prohibiting specific financial transactions with Rwanda in 1994. Through any agency he or she may designate, the President can investigate, regulate and prohibit in whole or in part economic relations between any country or national thereof, and the United States, any US person or any property interest subject to US jurisdiction. UNPAĪnother source of legislative authority for the President to issue economic sanctions is the UNPA, which empowers the President to impose economic sanctions when mandated by the United Nations Security Council pursuant to Article 41 of the UN Charter. Typically, the prohibitions found in the executive orders become codified in Title 31, Chapter V of the CFR. Pursuant to IEEPA, the President can declare a national emergency and issue executive orders to address that national emergency by, among other things, freezing the assets of and prohibiting financial transactions with any country, entity or person determined to be a threat to the United States. With IEEPA, the focus shifted from wartime powers under TWEA to address more broadly ‘any unusual and extraordinary threat’ to US national security, foreign policy or economic stability. The most common legislative authority the President relies on to impose sanctions today is IEEPA, which Congress passed in 1977 in an effort to demarcate more clearly the President’s emergency powers. Currently, TWEA remains the underlying legislation only for sanctions against Cuba. This statute conferred on the President wide-ranging powers to restrict trade between the United States and foreigners or countries considered enemies during wartime. TWEAĬongress passed TWEA in 1917, at the time of the United States’ entry into the first world war, to ‘define, regulate, and punish trading with the enemy’. The key legislative authorities underpinning US sanctions are the Trading with the Enemy Act (TWEA), the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) and the United Nations Participation Act (UNPA).

The constitutional authority for these interwoven powers stems from Article II, Section 3 (that the Executive shall ‘take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed’) and Article I, Section 8 (Congress’ legislative power in respect of foreign commerce).

#LIST OF COUNTRIES CURRENTLY UNDER US SANCTIONS CODE#

OFAC then issues and enforces those sanctions regulations as published in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). In the ordinary course, Congress passes statutes that authorise the President to promulgate sanctions through executive orders. US economic and trade sanctions are long-standing US foreign policy tools directed at specific jurisdictions, such as Cuba, Iran and North Korea, and specific governments, government officials, companies or individuals determined to have acted contrary to US foreign policy and national security objectives, such as with respect to nuclear weapons proliferation or narcotics trafficking. This chapter surveys US economic and trade sanctions, with a particular focus on the authorities underlying US sanctions and the processes by which the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) regulates sanctions and exemptions thereto.

List of countries currently under us sanctions