For some time now, the United Nations has not only adopted traditional economic sanctions regimes under Article 41 (2) of the UN-Charter against states in order to implement International law but has also made increasing use of so-called »smart« or »targeted« sanctions against individuals and organizations. These measures regularly involve the freezing of assets belonging to listed individuals and entities and the making of orders to prevent new funds becoming available by cutting off their financial resources. Following the September 11th attacks and the global fight against terrorism, these smart sanctions have also found their way into the law of the European Union (EU). On the one hand, the EU has adopted the UN sanctions regimes and transformed them into EU law. On the other hand, the EU has adopted a number of autonomous smart sanctions regimes which are targeted against criminal elites in third states.



This study seeks to outline and answer the main issues raised in the context of smart sanctions following the current developments in EU policy and taking account of the judgments of the European courts. A special focus of this work is the international debate on whether legal safeguards, including human rights standards, apply or should apply to smart sanctions regimes where International law and EU law overlap.