US publishes final rule on Mali

The US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (‘OFAC’) has published a final rule which implements Executive Order 13882, on the situation in Mali.

It is explained in the Mali Sanctions Regulations that:

‘In E.O. 13882, the President determined that the situation in Mali, including repeated violations of ceasefire arrangements made pursuant to the 2015 Agreement on Peace and Reconciliation in Mali; the expansion of terrorist activities into southern and central Mali; the intensification of drug trafficking and trafficking in persons, human rights abuses, and hostage-taking; and the intensification of attacks against civilians, the Malian defense and security forces, the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilizations Mission in Mali (MINUSMA), and international security presences, constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States, and declared a national emergency to deal with that threat.’

The executive order ‘allows for the designation as SDNs of those parties that are responsible for, or complicit in, or to have directly or indirectly engaged or attempted to engage in:

• actions or policies that threaten the peace, security, or stability of Mali;
• actions or policies that undermine democratic processes or institutions in Mali;
• a hostile act in violation of, or an act that obstructs, including by prolonged delay, or threatens the implementation of, the 2015 Agreement on Peace and Reconciliation in Mali;
• planning, directing, sponsoring, or conducting attacks against local, regional, or state institutions, the Malian defense and security forces, any international security presences, United Nations peacekeepers, other United Nations or associated personnel, or any other peacekeeping operations;
• obstructing the delivery or distribution of, or access to, humanitarian assistance;
• planning, directing, or committing an act that violates international humanitarian law or that constitutes a serious human rights abuse or violation, including an act involving the targeting of civilians through the commission of an act of violence, abduction or enforced disappearance, forced displacement, or an attack on a school, hospital, religious site, or location where civilians are seeking refuge;
• the use or recruitment of children by armed groups or armed forces in the context of the armed conflict in Mali;
• the illicit production or trafficking of narcotics or their precursors originating or transiting through Mali;
• trafficking in persons, smuggling migrants, or trafficking or smuggling arms or illicitly acquired cultural property; or
• any transaction or series of transactions involving bribery or other corruption, such as the misappropriation of Malian public assets or expropriation of private assets for personal gain or political purposes.’

See: https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/Documents/fr85_7223.pdf