UK Targeted Sanctions Need Stronger Safeguards

For the latest edition of Briefings and Commentary, Outline Chambers contributor Alex Prezanti examines the growing role of UK targeted sanctions policy and asks whether stronger democratic and judicial safeguards are now needed. Reflecting on recent legal developments and wider geopolitical concerns, the article explores how sanctions can remain effective while avoiding executive overreach and preserving fundamental rights.

By Alex Prezanti

UK Targeted Sanctions Need Stronger Safeguards The UK Government describes sanctions as ‘policy decisions made into law’, aimed at supporting UK foreign policy and national security objectives, maintaining international peace and security and preventing terrorism. Unlike economic embargoes and import/export controls which affect entire foreign populations, targeted sanctions focus on key persons and entities involved in or enabling grave wrongdoing. Nevertheless, this has not insulated UK sanctions policy from accusations of neo-imperialism and executive overreach. In part, this is a matter of messaging. However, targeted sanctions can have a serious impact on designated individuals, and where there is leverage, they can impact policy decisions and behavioural change in foreign countries. The key questions are – how does the UK ensure that sanctions and their impact are proportionate to the stated objectives and are perceived as such?

Let’s start with messaging. What is the main objective behind targeted sanctions? Is it to punish and/or affect the behaviour or a foreign national beyond the UK courts’ reach? Or is it to safeguard the UK from unsavoury characters and their illicit wealth? Perhaps it is both, but the former sounds a lot like extraterritorial law enforcement. When the target of those sanctions is a senior foreign government official, this inevitably attracts accusations of UK meddling in foreign policymaking. But let’s acknowledge that the punitive effect of UK sanctions is limited unless the designated person has assets, business interests or some other strong economic or personal connection to the UK. And if that is indeed the case, then surely the primary objective should be to prevent human rights abusers, kleptocrats and war criminals from entering the UK, laundering their illicit wealth through the UK economy and using their UK-based assets and professional services for their misdeeds. In the author’s view, this should be the focus of UK Government messaging around the aims of its sanctions policy. The UK has a legitimate right to protect its borders and its economy from criminals and kleptocrats. Illicit wealth causes significant damage to the UK economy, distorts property markets, tarnishes the UK’s reputation, feeds organised crime and threatens its national security and democratic institutions. Targeted sanctions have a role to play in safeguarding the UK from such threats and should be presented as such. Any impact that they may have on the designated person should be perceived as incidental to the primary objective of shutting the UK, its economy and services to the designated person – provided that the impact is proportionate.

Whether the impact on the designated person is proportionate must be assessed on a case-by-case basis. A foreign resident with no assets or business interests in the UK will not be affected in the same way as a UK resident whose family will lose access to their assets and digital or financial services. In Shvidler v Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs [2025] UKSC 30, the UK Supreme Court applied a four-stage proportionality test, asking: (i) whether the objective of the measure is sufficiently important to justify the limitation of a protected right; (ii) whether the measure is rationally connected to that objective; (iii) whether a less intrusive measure could have been used; and (iv) whether, balancing the severity of the interference against the importance of the objective, the measure strikes a fair balance. In applying this test, the majority afforded the Foreign Secretary a wide margin of appreciation on the basis that sanctions policy engages matters of foreign affairs and national security in which the executive possesses “special constitutional responsibilities and superior institutional competence.” Conversely, in his dissent Lord Leggatt “profoundly disagreed” with the majority’s take on the Government’s wide margin of appreciation. He points out that courts are in a better position than ministers to assess whether a “fair balance” has been struck, adding that “if the courts are not prepared to protect fundamental individual freedoms […] the right to a judicial review of the minister’s decision to curtail such freedoms under sanctions regulations is of little worth”.

Lord Leggatt dissent raises a crucial question about democratic safeguards in the context of sanctions. Today, most of the electorate may agree that in the grand scheme of things, sanctions against Kremlin-linked oligarchs and their associates may be justified by the UK’s objective to end Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. However, what if a future government uses these sanctions powers to topple a democratically elected government under the guise of national security, or to exert punishment after a failed criminal prosecution? Will the courts have to defer to the government’s “special constitutional responsibilities and superior institutional competence”? In the author’s view, one of the key pillars of our democracy is the courts’ role in safeguarding individual rights and providing an effective remedy for their violations. The courts must be free to assess whether the government’s sanctions strike a fair balance in each individual case and not simply defer to the executive’s judgement.

Parliament is another key pillar of our democratic system, and yet it has almost no role to play in UK sanctions policy. Whilst designations are reported on by ministers, the decision-making process and broader sanctions policy remains beyond Parliamentary scrutiny. The author suggests that relevant parliamentary committees (e.g.: the Foreign Affairs Committee or the Security Select Committee) should be given formal oversight roles, with ministers required to set out sanctions policy, explain its objectives and substantiate its proportionality. Parliamentary scrutiny should take national security and the need for confidentiality into account and can be done in closed session or through confidential memoranda where such needs arise.

Finally, sanctions policy – like any other major state interventions – would benefit from independent and data-driven expert opinion. An independent panel of experts should be appointed and given access to Government data to assess whether sanctions designations are meeting their stated purposes, consider their impact on designated persons and review evidence of unintended consequences where they arise. The panel should have basic investigative powers and engage with a wide range of non-governmental actors. Its non-binding recommendations would lead to more effective, data-driven and fair sanctions designations, and if followed, should strengthen the Government’s case if challenged in the courts.

Thus, in the author’s view, as sanctions become a key feature of UK government policy, more safeguards are needed to prevent executive overreach and stave off accusations of neo-imperialism. Their objectives should focus on safeguarding the UK and its economy from harbouring or becoming complicit in the conduct of malign actors. The courts should be given greater scope to assess the fairness of their impact on individual rights. Parliament should be given greater oversight and an independent panel of experts should provide data-informed recommendations for a more effective and fairer sanctions policy. 

  Alex Prezanti is a door tenant at Outline Chambers. More about his background and work can be found on his profile page: Alexandre Prezanti profile.