Restrictive measures adopted by the United Nations Security Council and the Council of the European Union.
I.1. UN sanctions
Under Article 25 of the United Nations (UN) Charter (promulgated by Act I of 1956 in Hungary), UN Member States are required to implement the resolutions of the Security Council (SC). Under Article 41 of the UN Charter, in order to maintain or restore international peace and security, the SC may resolve to apply certain measures not involving the use of armed forces, i.e. restrictive measures (sanctions). These sanctions represent one of the forms of national and multilateral foreign policy action taken in the interest of international peace and security.
In addition to general trade embargos imposed on certain countries, which affect the entire population of a given country, since the beginning of the 1990s the practice of adopting so-called “targeted sanctions” has become widespread. In this case, sanctions are directly imposed only on persons or organisations that may be held responsible for acts threatening international peace and security or otherwise violating international law.
At present, the SC maintains sanctions in relation to the following countries: Afghanistan, the Central African Republic, Eritrea, Côte d’Ivoire, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Liberia, Libya, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.
In addition, within the framework of the fight against terrorism, the SC ordered sanctions in its Resolution No 1267 (1999, and amended several times) against the organisation al-Qaeda and the Taliban, as well as individuals and entities associated with them. On 17 June 2011 the UNSC divided the two regimes to create a sanction regime with international restrictive measures introduced separately against al-Qaeda (SC Resolution No 1989 (2011)) and the Taliban (SC Resolution No 1988 (2011)). In its Resolution No 2253 (2015), the SC extended the al-Qaeda regime of sanctions to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. In its Resolution No 1373 (2001), the SC also provided for restrictive measures against terrorists and terrorist organisations in general. Sometimes there are no sanctions against a country, but one of its associated entities is featured in the abovementioned al-Qaeda or Taliban list.
Further information on the sanctions specified in the resolutions of the UNSC currently in force, the persons and entities subject to sanctions, and the individual sanctions committees is available on the following website.
I.2. EU sanctions
The European Union (EU) decides on the introduction of restrictive measures under its Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). It does this firstly for the joint implementation of UNSC resolutions and secondly in order to enforce EU foreign policy.
As a first step, the Council of the European Union (Council) adopts a resolution under the CFSP on the basis of Article 29 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU), which is binding on Member States and will be implemented through national legislation.
If the restrictive measures also cover issues within EU competence (e.g. trade bans, financial and pecuniary restrictive measures), on the basis of the resolution the Council shall adopt a regulation directly applicable and subject to direct effect in the Member States, in accordance with Article 75 or 215 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU).
The website of the European External Action Service (EEAS) contains a list – in English and classified according to country – of Council decisions and current Council regulations ordering restrictive measures.
In addition, Council decisions and Council regulations are published in the Official Journal of the European Union and are available in all official EU languages, including Hungarian, using the search function of EUR-Lex: