Taliban takeover: what next for sanctions and recognition?

While the G7 group of nations were unable to agree to extend the deadline for the evacuation of  Kabul, it has set out its expectations of any ‘future government’ of Afghanistan, including, ‘…adherence to obligations under international human rights law, including the rights of women, girls, and minority groups, and that international humanitarian law is upheld in all circumstances,’ with the implied threat that in their absence, sanctions would be imposed,  and recognition of a Taliban-led government delayed.

However, the latter is not ruled out. The statement says, ‘The legitimacy of any future government depends on the approach it now takes to uphold its international obligations and commitments to ensure a stable Afghanistan.’

At the 23 August US State Department press briefing, spokesman Ned Price said that when dealing with the Taliban,

‘We have a number of our tools at our disposal. The United States does. When we are working in tandem with the rest of the world, with the UN, we have an even greater number of tools. Some of these tools are broad, some of these tools are narrow and fairly tailored. We will be prepared to apply whatever tool is necessary given what unfolds and given our assessment going forward of what has unfolded.’

The draft text of the original Doha Agreement signed by the Trump Administration provided for, commencing with the start of intra-Afghan negotiations ‘an administrative review of current U.S. sanctions and the rewards list against members of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan which is not recognized by the United States as a state and is known as the Taliban with the goal of removing these sanctions by August 27, 2020,’ and ‘diplomatic engagement with other members of the United Nations Security Council and Afghanistan to remove members of [Taliban] from the sanctions list with the aim of achieving this objective by May 29, 2020.’

Neither, in the event, occurred. Indeed, on 22 August it was reported that the  US government had  frozen $9bn worth of Afghan government reserves to ensure that  they did  not reach the Taliban.

Currently UN Security Council Resolution 1988 (2015) sets out the UN position on sanctions against the Taliban and ‘imposes an assets freeze, a travel ban and an arms embargo on individuals, groups, undertakings and entities associated with the Taliban in constituting a threat to the peace, stability and security of Afghanistan.’

The United States sanctions the Taliban and 14 associated groups under its counter-terror regulations. But the exact scope of the designation is unclear. As Adam Smith, partner at the law firm Gibson, Dunn (and former senior adviser to the Director of OFAC) has written,

‘Unfortunately, the United States has never defined exactly what (or who) makes up “the Taliban,” nor has it made clear whether the fact that a sanctioned group controls a country means that the country itself is sanctioned.’

Given the urgent humanitarian needs of Afghanistan, observers say there is an urgency to reconcile the international community’s desire to keep pressure on the Taliban with the country’s urgent humanitarian needs. ‘In part this is complicated’, one told WorldECR, ‘because, in the United States the Taliban is not sanctioned under an OFAC country programme – making the issue of, say, a general licence for humanitarian reasons problematic.’

‘This will be an evolving space,’ they said.

See: www.g7uk.org/g7-leaders-statement-on-afghanistan/