Assessing the effectiveness of sanctions as a tool to disrupt serious organised crime

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PROJECT TEAM

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Cathy Haenlein

Royal United Service Institute

Contact: CathyH@rusi.org

Cathy Haenlein is Director of the Organised Crime and Policing research group and Senior Research Fellow at RUSI, with expertise in serious and organised crime, illicit trade, conflict and development. Cathy’s focus is on transnational environmental crime, with regional expertise in East and Southern Africa, including extensive fieldwork. She is also the Chair of RUSI’s Strategic Hub for Organised Crime Research, and a Research Associate and guest lecturer in King’s College London’s Marjan Centre for the Study of War and the Non-Human Sphere.

 
Headshot of Anton Moiseienko

Dr Anton Moiseienko

Australian National University

Contact: Anton.Moiseienko@anu.edu.au

Anton Moiseienko is a Lecturer at the ANU College of Law. His work focuses on transnational crime, economic crime and cybercrime, as well as legal and policy aspects of targeted sanctions. He was previously a Research Fellow at the Centre for Financial Crime and Security Studies, RUSI, where he led major multi-year research projects that explored the impact of technology on financial crime, as well as illicit trade risks in free-trade zones.

 
Headshot of Elijah Glantz

Elijah Glantz

Royal United Service Institute

Contact: ElijahG@rusi.org

Elijah Glantz is a Research Analyst and Project Officer for the Organised Crime and Policing Team (OCP) at RUSI. He manages and supports projects in OCP's environmental crime portfolio. In addition to supporting the team's research, he is Co-Project Manager and Editor for the Strategic Hub for Organised Crime Research (SHOC).

 
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PROJECT SUMMARY

This project seeks to address a number of gaps in the evidence base on the effectiveness of sanctions use by countries to tackle SOC. It aims to make a key contribution as an independent study of existing experience of using sanctions against SOC – and the lessons this experience holds for the UK.

The first phase of this project sought to identify factors influencing the effectiveness of SOC-focused sanctions, and identified political will (or the lack thereof) in the host country as key in two cases – Colombia and Libya. In Colombia, political will to support sanctions designations was central to the perceived success of sanctions use; in Libya, by contrast, limited domestic cooperation hindered sanctions use in this space. The limited scope of the project and timeframe, however, prevented in-depth examination of factors affecting the differential levels of political will in these cases.

The second phase of the project dives deeper into the crucial question of political will – one that is underexplored in the literature. The project will look at political will from two perspectives: that of sanction-sending states/multilaterals and that of the home states of individuals targeted by sanctions. In both cases, the project will consider what factors drive or hinder political will to support SOC-related sanctions, such as alignment with domestic and foreign policy goals, geopolitical considerations, targeting strategy (e.g. state/non-state actors), domestic capacity, and clarity on the objectives of sanctions use.


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Unlocking the black box of political will on IFFs: Going beyond technical responses

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Interoperability, multi-agency sensemaking and the potential of AI for more politically feasible & effective strategies and operations