Is it possible to make exceptions to the EU sanctions list?

In the nearest future the Court of Justice of the European Union will consider first cases of claims for delisting from the EU blacklists – applicants in these cases are Russian individuals and legal entities complaining of restrictive measures put against them. The most interesting and significant of these will be the case of Arkady Rotenberg who had fallen under the EU restrictions because of his close connections to the Russian President and because of his fortune, which was made solely in the latter’s tenure period. So, the case of afore-said applicant is not chosen in this paper by chance. Only the individual can have and enjoy human rights and defend them in the court; the blacklisted legal entities, companies and banks such as Rosneft or Sberbank, are not entitled to enjoy human rights in European understanding. The proceedings will result in a legal response to the many questions of EU restrictive measures against Russia, which never seems to occur to Western decision-makers to speak out: on the interrelationship of business and government in Russia, dependency of top businesspeople from the Head of State. The article analyzes the arguments put forward by A.Rotenberg; the reasons of EU respective regulation; and in the light of similar cases of leading businessmen of Syria and Belarus estimates prospects of success in the ECJ. The author concludes that the applicant has a real chance to be delisted, but neither because of a good position nor thanks to the expertise of legal representatives, rather on formal grounds of poorly defined objectives, which the European Council is aiming to reach by introducing the said person into the blacklist.

About the author: Sergey Glandin – Candidate of Sciences (Ph.D.) in Law, lecturer, Diplomatic Academy of Russian Foreign Ministry.

Citation: Glandin S.V. (2016) Mozhno li dobit'sya isklyucheniya iz sanktsionnogo spiska ES? [Is it possible to make exceptions to the EU sanctions list?]. Mezhdunarodnoye pravosudie, no.2, pp.46–60. (In Russian).

References

Giumelli F. (2013) How EU Sanctions Work: A New Narrative, Paris : EU Institute for Security Studies, (Chaillot Papers. No.129).

Glandin S. (2015) Isklyuchenie iz sanktsionnykh spiskov v sude ES. Opyt “soyuznikov” Rossii [Delisting through Court of EU. Russia “co-allies” experience]. Legal Insight, no.10, pp.41–45. (In Russian).

Gudkov I., Mizulin N. (2014) “Sanktsionnaya voyna” ES i Rossii v svete prava VTO [“Sanctions war” between EU and Russia in light of WTO Law]. Pravo VTO, no.2, pp.46–52. (In Russian).

Ispolinov A.S. (2016) Kontrol' regional'nykh i natsional'nykh sudov nad resheniyami Soveta Bezopasnosti OON [Control of regional and national Courts over resolutions of UN Security Council]. Zakonodatel'stvo, no.1, pp.54–65. (In Russian).

Poli S., Tzanou M. (2009) The Kadi rulings: A survey of literature. Yearbook of European Law, vol.28, no.1, pp.533–558.

Rachkov I.V. (2014) Ekonomicheskie sanktsii s tochki zreniya prava GATT/VTO [Economic sanctions from the viewpoint of GATT/WTO Law]. Mezhdunarodnoe pravosudie. no.3, pp.91–113. (In Russian).