UN Country Regimes: DPRK, Libya, Sudan, Yemen, CAR, DRC, Mali
UN Security Council country sanctions regimes — mandates, listing criteria, panels of experts, and enforcement architecture across seven active 1718-style committees.
The 1267 Model Applied to States
UN country sanctions regimes operate under Chapter VII of the Charter, which empowers the Security Council under Article 41 to impose measures not involving the use of armed force. Each regime is established by a founding resolution that creates a Sanctions Committee — a subsidiary body composed of all 15 Council members operating by consensus — to administer designations, grant exemptions, and report violations. The committees are numbered after their founding resolution: the 1718 Committee (DPRK, 2006), 1970 Committee (Libya, 2011), 1591 Committee (Sudan/Darfur, 2005), 2140 Committee (Yemen, 2014), 2127 Committee (Central African Republic, 2013), 1533 Committee (DRC, 2004), and 2374 Committee (Mali, 2017).
Each committee is supported by a Panel of Experts (or Group of Experts for DRC) — independent investigators appointed by the Secretary-General who produce mid-term and final reports documenting violations, sanctions evasion typologies, and proposed designations. The DPRK Panel of Experts, established by Resolution 1874 (2009), was the most consequential of these bodies until Russia vetoed renewal of its mandate on 28 March 2024, ending fifteen years of forensic reporting on proliferation finance, ship-to-ship transfers, and cyber theft.
Substantive Measures and Listing Criteria
The measures themselves cluster into four families: asset freezes, travel bans, arms embargoes, and sector-specific prohibitions. The DPRK regime is the most expansive — Resolutions 2270 (2016), 2321 (2016), 2371 (2017), 2375 (2017), and 2397 (2017) progressively banned exports of coal, iron, seafood, textiles, and capped refined petroleum imports at 500,000 barrels per year. Resolution 2397 also required member states to repatriate all DPRK overseas workers by 22 December 2019.
Libya's regime under Resolution 1970 (2011) imposed an arms embargo, asset freeze on Qadhafi-era figures, and a travel ban; Resolution 2146 (2014) added authority to interdict vessels exporting illicit Libyan crude. The Sudan regime under Resolution 1591 (2005) targets Darfur with an arms embargo on the region and individual designations of those impeding the peace process — recently extended on 12 September 2024 by Resolution 2750 amid the SAF-RSF civil war.
Yemen's 2140 regime targets spoilers of the political transition; Resolution 2216 (2015) added an arms embargo on Houthi forces and designated Abdulmalik al-Houthi and former President Saleh. The CAR regime imposes an arms embargo modified by Resolution 2693 (2023) to lift restrictions on government forces while maintaining them on armed groups. The DRC regime under Resolution 1807 (2008) targets non-state armed groups in the east, and the Mali regime under Resolution 2374 (2017) sanctions those obstructing the 2015 Algiers Accord — though Russia and China vetoed/abstained on renewal in August 2023, terminating that regime.
Listing Standards
Unlike OFAC's evidentiary threshold, UN committees require consensus among all 15 members, meaning a single P5 hold blocks designation. Listing criteria are codified in the founding resolution: for DPRK under paragraph 8(d) of Resolution 1718, persons engaged in or providing support for nuclear, ballistic, or WMD-related programs; for Libya under paragraph 22 of Resolution 1970, those ordering violence against civilians. Delisting petitions for non-1267 regimes go through the Focal Point established by Resolution 1730 (2006) — a far weaker review mechanism than the Office of the Ombudsperson available for ISIL/Al-Qaida listings.