Sanctions and access to justice

Background

Effective access to justice, due process, fair trial guarantees, the presumption of innocence, and related principles and standards — such as non-discrimination, equality before the law, and the right to legal representation — are essential for the protection, promotion and enjoyment of all human rights. 

However, States, businesses and individuals targeted by unilateral sanctions often face serious challenges in accessing judicial, quasi-judicial bodies, or other relevant mechanisms to challenge these measures and the consequent adverse effects. As a result, their ability to seek redress and effective remedy is limited.

Fundamental principles of justice are undermined in several ways. These include long delays in the review of sanctions-related cases, restricted access to the evidence used to justify sanctions designations, and the reported use of practices such as the rebuttable presumption of wrongdoing and shifting the burden of proof onto the sanctioned parties.

Unilateral sanctions are mainly executive/administrative measures decided and enforced by non-judicial institutions of the sanctioning parties. As such, they rarely provide opportunities for impartial judicial review or safeguards to ensure due process and fairness. Nevertheless, such executive and administrative measures, although enforced outside any formal judicial/criminal procedure, do impose penalties equivalent in severity to criminal penalties, with serious implications on the lives, rights and operations of those targeted by such measures. 

Human Rights Council resolution 55/7, adopted on 5 April 2024, recognized that access to justice is a precondition to exercising all human rights and an important safeguard that ensures fundamental fairness, equality and integrity, also in the face of unilateral coercive measures and overcompliance. The same resolution also stressed “the need for an impartial and independent mechanism of the United Nations human rights machinery for the victims of unilateral coercive measures to address the issues of remedies and redress, with a view to promoting accountability and legal, equitable, timely and effective remedies and reparations.”

Reports

Access to justice in the face of unilateral sanctions and overcompliance (2024)

The report describes and assesses practices and challenges in the access to justice by various actors, including States, individuals and businesses, who are directly subjected to primary and secondary sanctions, and all those who face criminal and civil charges for circumvention of sanctions. It also highlights challenges faced by legal professionals, including lawyers and judges, in their work on sanctions-related cases, including but not limited to impediments in obtaining licenses for legal representation and financial transfer restrictions for the payment of legal fees. The report also dedicates specific sections on international courts, UN human rights institutions and mechanisms, regional courts, national courts of sanctioning countries, and international commercial and investment arbitration bodies. Finally, it contains a preliminary analysis on the concept and practice of “rebuttable presumption” of wrongdoing in certain sanctions regulations, and the reversal of burden of proof in sanctions-related cases. 

The report concludes with recommendations, including the following:

• States to use all available mechanisms of international adjudication, including the International Court of Justice and the World Trade Organization dispute settlement body
• States to create mechanisms for pro bono legal assistance for sanctions-affected persons
• States to provide, without discrimination, access to judicial protection of all human rights adversely impacted by unilateral sanctions, means of their enforcement and overcompliance
• States to revoke legislation aimed at criminalizing or penalizing circumvention of sanctions
• States to ensure that legal professionals perform all of their professional functions in sanctions-related cases, without discrimination, hindrance, harassment or intimidation.
• UN human rights mechanisms, including treaty bodies, to consider cases of human rights violations due to enforcement of unilateral sanctions

Visit the report page 

Other documents

The Guiding Principles on Sanctions, Business and Human Rights and their Commentary include sections on access to justice in the face of unilateral primary sanctions, secondary sanctions, means of their enforcement and over-compliance, recalling relevant international standards on non-discrimination and equality before the law. They stress the importance of unhindered access to national or international mechanisms for redress, the respect and protection of due process and fair trial guarantees, including the presumption of innocence, and the protection of the legal profession in sanctions-related cases. They also make reference to administrative and operational restrictions resulting from the imposition of sanctions, which impede access to justice and violate the right to an effective remedy, including but not limited to asset freezes, travel bans, and payments restrictions.

Relevant communications

2025 CHE 4/2024; OTH 123/2024

2023 USA 23/2 023

2021 CPV 2/2021; USA 9/2021

2020USA 24/ 2020; USA 15/2020

Related events and activities 

• On 4 March 2025, on the margins of the 58th Session of the UN Human Rights Council, the Special Rapporteur organised a side event on the Impact of Unilateral Sanctions on Access to Justice and to an Effective Remedy with the participation of various stakeholders, including States, civil society, academia and legal professionals
• On 21 and 22 November 2024, the Special Rapporteur co-organised, together with the Group of Friends in Defense of the Charter of the United Nations, an International Conference on “Sanctions, Business and Human Rights”. The event brought together various stakeholders, including States, civil society and humanitarian actors, academics, and legal professionals, to reflect on the Guiding Principles and address the main challenges caused by unilateral sanctions, the means of their enforcement, and over-compliance. It also examined the most important aspects of interaction between states and businesses in sanctions environments, the obligations of public and private actors under international law, as well as avenues to minimize over-compliance and to promote and protect human rights (21 November sessions: Part 1 and Part 2 / 22 November sessions: Part 1 and Part 2 )