Blacklisting and the ban: Contesting targeted sanctions in Europe

Abstract

This article examines the practice of targeted sanctions as they are deployed against individuals and groups suspected of financing and facilitating terrorism in Europe. Substantial academic attention and critique has surrounded targeted sanctions and blacklists, as these practices challenge existing logics of evidence, criminal culpability and proportionality. This article seeks to move the analysis of blacklisting beyond the breach of individual rights and toward an understanding of the wider political implications. It draws upon the work of Giorgio Agamben to offer a reading of blacklisting in terms of its symbolic function of banishment and exclusion, which simultaneously redraws the boundaries around normal, valued, ways of life. The article teases out the exceptional and pre-emptive nature of blacklisting as a security measure. It analyses in some detail the Kadi case before the European Court of Justice, and argues that blacklisting and its current contestations work to inscribe the principles of pre-emption into the international juridical order.

Making Human Rights Emotional: A Research Agenda to Recover Shame in “Naming and Shaming”

“…A rich IR literature examines the use and efficacy of a variety of naming and shaming instruments, ranging from formal resolutions, blacklists, and targeted sanctions to discursive representations that impose reputational costs such as social opprobrium on targets. While states are adept users of naming and shaming as documented in this literature (Ausderan, ; Biersteker, ; de Goede, ; Lebovic & Voeten, ), a robust scholarship centers on its use by nonstate actors (NSAs), particularly nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), in the arena of human rights (Bell & Carens, ; Bob, ; Hill, Moore, & Mukherjee, ; Keck & Sikkink, ; Meernik, Aloisi, Sowell, & Nichols, ; Murdie & Peksen, ; Ron, Ramos, & Rodgers, ). Despite the centrality accorded to NGOs in promulgating human rights norms through naming and shaming, the literature provides a rudimentary understanding of their underlying motivations, assessment, and conceptualization of this tool.…”

“…Discussions of blacklists also stop short of directly exploring shame, even when they are apt for tracing such emotional impacts. A case in point is terrorism blacklists, which spotlight “terrorist groups as objects worthy of opprobrium” (Pillar, , p. 152) and constitute a “banishment” or “exile” from society of sorts (de Goede, ). Thus, there are ample avenues to explore emotions in naming and shaming.…”

Political secrecy in Europe: crisis management and crisis exploitation

“…They represent the legal basis for the EU's list of individuals, groups, and entities that are subject to 'targeted' sanctions, in particular the asset freeze. It provides that the Council is in charge of drawing up the list and can amend it on a regular basis (Goede 2012).…”

Securitizing Money to Counter Terrorist Finance: Some Unintended Consequences for Developing Economies

“…One approach is the imposition of targeted financial sanctions against known and suspected terrorists, their supporters and any person (natural and legal) who might provide funds to a terrorist organization. (de Goede ; Heupel ). The financial surveillance approach looks for suspicious transactions in order to bring the transacting parties to the attention of law enforcement and security services for closer inspection in order to determine whether these transactions were intended to finance terrorism (Amicelle and Favarel‐Garrigues ).…”