EU sanctions

The famous 'Kadi' cases have generated a wealth of articles dealing with the legal problems involved in EU implementation of UN Security Council sanctions. Less attention has been devoted to the numerous legal problems involved in the EU's own 'autonomous' sanctions system. The subject is nevertheless topical since there is a growing use of sanctions and the legal basis for sanctions has been changed with the Lisbon treaty. EU sanctions are used both against regimes and suspected terrorist financing. But these sanctions have developed 'organically', without sufficient thought being given to certain basic issues (inter alia concerning procedural fairness). This has resulted in considerable litigation before the Court of Justice (CJEU). The new legal basis and the recent judgments from the CJEU have solved some difficulties, but 'taking sanctions seriously' means new problems for national implementation, spanning over a variety of areas: criminal law, constitutional law, international law and European law.