Global Policy Forum

By David Crawford

Alleged al Qaeda and Taliban supporters blacklisted by the United Nations Security Council will for the first time be able to petition directly to have their names removed and sanctions lifted, removing a top complaint of lawyers and civil-rights lobbies.

The security body cleared the way for a form of appeals process when it voted Tuesday to set up an office to handle requests by individuals to lift sanctions imposed under a range of U.N. resolutions dating back to 1992.

Explaining why Denmark proposed the change while it was president of the Security Council, Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moller said in an interview yesterday, "Denmark wants to combine the fight against terrorism with respect for human rights and the rule of law."

More than 300 people have been listed at the Security Council under one of those resolutions, 1267, which was passed in 1999 to pressure leaders of the then Taliban government in Afghanistan to hand over Osama bin Laden, following al Qaeda's bombing of U.S. embassies in Africa. Since then, the resolution has been used more widely by governments to sanction people they believe to belong to or support al Qaeda and the Taliban.

Any country can add a person to the list by proposing a name and reasoning to the Security Council. If none of the 15 countries on the Security Council object within five days, sanctions that include freezing a person's assets and blocking their right to international travel are applied. Individuals have no right to present a defense and until now could only ask their government to propose delisting them.

The new Security Council office -- called a "focal point" -- will be able to receive petitions from individuals sanctioned under 1267, as well as 10 other resolutions directed at individuals in Somalia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Congo, Cote d'Ivoire, Sudan and North Korea.

Youssef Nada, a resident of Switzerland who has been listed as a supporter of al Qaeda under 1267, said the change was cosmetic because it leaves the final decision to lift or retain sanctions in the hands of the same countries that ordered the designation. "It doesn't tackle the issues of transparency and justice," Mr. Nada said in a telephone interview.

The U.S. has proposed the largest number of al Qaeda and Taliban listings at the Security Council and supports the process as an essential tool in the war on terrorism. A spokesman for the U.S. representation at the U.N. declined to comment.

The new process won't change the way people are listed for sanctions, but it will let them present their case for removal from the lists in writing. The petitioner, however, doesn't have a right to participate in the review process that follows in the Security Council.

Matjaz Gruden, spokesman for the Council of Europe, which has criticized the process, said the new focal point offers an improvement, "but it is not an adversarial process." He added that the Council of Europe's member countries will still have trouble reconciling the process with the European Convention on Human Rights, which commits them to due legal process.

See resolution 1730 (December 19, 2006)

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