International sanctions: who sets them, who they bind

International sanctions are restrictive measures adopted by the United Nations Security Council to maintain or restore international peace and security. They are not a trade dispute or a tariff - they are taken under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, and once the Council 'designates' a person, entity, vessel or aircraft, every UN member state is legally bound to give them effect. That binding force on all 193 members is what makes these measures genuinely 'international', rather than the foreign policy of any single country.

For a trader, one point matters: a Security Council decision does not bind your business by itself. It obliges states to act, and reaches you only once it is implemented in the national law that applies to you. That step is near-automatic, so a decision taken in New York, which you may never see, can still make your next shipment a criminal offence.

Who imposes international sanctions?

The UN Security Council is the only body whose sanctions every UN member state is obliged to implement - which is what gives them near-global reach, rather than binding traders directly. Two Charter provisions do the work:

• Article 41 lets the Council decide on measures 'not involving the use of armed force' - the legal basis for asset freezes, arms embargoes, trade restrictions and travel bans.
• Article 25 obliges members to 'accept and carry out' the Council's decisions, which is why a UN listing is not advisory.

The Council runs each set of measures through a dedicated sanctions committee, which maintains the list of designated targets. The consolidated result is the UN Security Council Consolidated List.

What can international sanctions require?

Modern UN sanctions have largely moved away from comprehensive, country-wide embargoes towards narrower measures - a shift driven by the civilian harm that blunt embargoes once caused, traced in full in 'Sanctions: peace, security and human rights' (CCRM 13, 2022; updated 2026). Today's measures are of two broad kinds: 'targeted' measures aimed at named individuals and entities, and restrictions on specific goods or sectors such as arms, oil or dual-use items. Typical measures include:

• asset freezes on designated persons and entities;
• a ban on making funds or economic resources available to them;
• arms embargoes and bans on related training or finance;
• sectoral trade restrictions (for example on coal, oil, luxury goods or dual-use items);
• travel bans on named individuals.

How many international sanctions regimes are there?

Since 1966 the Security Council has established 31 sanctions regimes; 15 are currently ongoing (figures as at 2026), covering counter-terrorism, non-proliferation and the settlement of specific conflicts - among them the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Libya, Sudan, Yemen and the ISIL (Da'esh) and Al-Qaida regime.

Because the list changes as conflicts open and close, the live count should always be checked against the Security Council's own overview.

How do international sanctions reach you?

The UN does not enforce its measures against your business directly. Each member state gives them force in its own law, for example:

• In the EU, the Council of the European Union transposes the resolution - usually a CFSP Decision followed by a Regulation that is directly applicable in every member state, with no national law needed. From that moment it binds you as an EU operator.
• In the UK, the resolution is implemented through regulations made under the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018, and the target is added to the UK Sanctions List - financial measures enforced by OFSI, trade measures by OTSI and HMRC.

So a UN designation almost always appears in both EU and UK law - for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK, North Korea), for instance, through Regulation (EU) 2017/1509 and the UK's DPRK (EU Exit) Regulations 2019.

Why the UN list is not the whole picture

The UN sets the global baseline that binds every member. On top of it, the EU, the UK, the US - and other countries such as Switzerland, Canada, Japan and Australia - each keep their own 'autonomous' sanctions, and these are not always aligned. They can differ on several things:

• who is listed - a party designated under one regime may not be listed under another, so a name that is clean in one place can be prohibited in another;
• what is prohibited - each regime attaches its own measures, from asset freezes and travel bans to trade and sectoral restrictions, and extends them to entities linked to a designated person, though the test for that link differs from regime to regime;
• how far it reaches - some regimes bind only their own operators, while others reach foreign companies too, the US furthest of all through mechanisms such as US-dollar clearing and 'secondary sanctions'.

The same entity can therefore sit on several lists at once, listed on different dates, under different instruments, with different measures attached. Screening against one regime is not enough - and you have to match aliases, not just the name on the invoice. 

Use case

You are asked to ship to a company called Korea Mining Development Trading Corporation. The name reads like an ordinary mining and trading firm. You ask Sanctions AI: Can I ship to Korea Mining Development Trading Corporation?

Sanctions AI returns that the shipment is prohibited - and shows exactly why the single UN listing reaches you from three directions. The entity is the DPRK's primary arms dealer, designated by the UN Security Council on 24 April 2009 and implemented in the EU through Annex XIII of Regulation (EU) 2017/1509; it is separately listed under the UK's DPRK (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, with an asset freeze, prohibition of port entry and closure of representative offices; and under US Executive Orders 13382 and 13687. It also resolves the aliases the company trades under - Changgwang Sinyong Corporation, External Technology General Corporation - so a match is not missed on a different name.

One question, the UN, EU, UK and US positions returned together, aliases resolved - the work that would otherwise mean opening four separate lists by hand. Try Sanctions AI.