Episode Details

The year 2023 marked a significant shift in how the EU makes space for humanitarian action in the design of sanctions, a foreign policy tool that has traditionally raised concerns due to its potential to hinder impartial humanitarian efforts. Mounting evidence and advocacy on the need for sanctions to include robust humanitarian safeguards to comply with international humanitarian law requirements resulted in the December 2022 adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 2664, which explicitly excludes humanitarian action from UN financial sanctions, initiating a transformative approach towards incorporating humanitarian exemptions in sanctions design. In this post, ICRC Advisers Sophie Huvé, Guillemette Moulin and Tristan Ferraro explore progress made in recent years at the EU level, as well as the remaining challenges. They suggest that the EU’s recent policy changes, aligning with UN Security Council Resolution 2664, should be set as a default in future sanctions designs, ensuring that humanitarian action is protected and facilitated within the framework of international humanitarian law (IHL).