The International Lawyers Project and Spotlight on Corruption today welcomed the UK government’s latest sanctions package against Russia’s military industrial complex and Russian-backed mercenary groups operating in Africa.
Praising today’s announcement, the two organisations noted that sanctions are an important tool in the toolbox for the UK government to ensure there is no impunity for bad actors – be they facilitators of Putin’s war machine or perpetrators and enablers of corruption which deprives the poorest people around the world of vital resources.
Susan Hawley, Executive Director of Spotlight on Corruption, said:
“This package of sanctions designations is bang on the money and is an encouraging sign that the new government is willing to use sanctions to target individuals and companies that would otherwise be unreachable by UK law enforcement. The key question is whether the government can take the same approach in other areas such as targeting networks of corrupt actors to ensure there is no impunity for corruption and kleptocracy.”
Eva van der Merwe, Senior Programmes Director at International Lawyers Project, said:
“By targeting an entire network of individuals and companies in multiple jurisdictions from China to Kazakhstan, using several different sanctions regimes, this package demonstrates the UK government’s capacity to take strong, innovative action through sanctions.”
You can find Spotlight’s detailed case studies of the UK’s Russia sanctions enforcement efforts on the Sanctions Cases section of our website.
