UN and EU sanctions
Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations forms the basis of most of the international community´s sanctions. Under the provisions of this Chapter, the UN Security Council may decide to impose collective sanctions aimed at maintaining international peace and security. Once the Security Council decides on sanctions, Member States are obliged, under international law, to implement these measures and incorporate the provisions in their own legal systems. For Sweden, this is done jointly with the other EU countries.
The EU can decide on international sanctions within the framework of the Common Foreign and Security Policy. This may either be a matter of decisions to jointly implement UN sanctions or independent decisions on sanctions. This is done by the Council of the European Union adopting a Council decision. Such decisions contain detailed commitments to implement certain sanctions. The measures that fall under the competence of the European Union (such as trade restrictions or freezing the assets of certain individuals or companies) are subsequently implemented in an EU regulation which becomes directly applicable in Swedish national law. The EU regulation can prescribe that certain duties must be undertaken by special competent authorities in each member country. Other measures fall under the competence of the Member States (such as arms embargoes) and are implemented via national legislation.
Violations of a prohibition contained in an EU regulation on economic sanctions or in a supplementary provision adopted by the Government based on a sanctions decision taken by the UN Security Council or the Council of the European Union are punishable. The provisions concerning this are found in the Act on Certain International Sanctions (1996:95). The penalty may be a fine or a maximum of two years imprisonment. A lower scale of penalties applies if the infraction occurs through grave carelessness, while a higher scale applies if the infraction is of a serious nature. Minor offences do not lead to liability.
