sanction- noun: a threatened
penalty for disobeying a law or rule. Codes of practice should be
accompanied by sanctions for offenders. Punishment; deterrent; punitive
action; embargo; ban; discipline; penalization; correction; retribution
WE HEAR A LOT ABOUT sanctions these days, country-based restrictive
measures
“imposed by one country or entity on another with the aim of limiting the
target country’s trade and business relations.” (A Brief History) Such sanctions can have significant effects on a
country but can also have unintended consequences (or intended ones) causing
immiseration of poor and vulnerable populations within the target country. We’ve
witnessed how the EU, Britain, the United States and most Western nations have
imposed round after round of sanctions against Russia* since its invasion of
Ukraine in 2022, in the form of trade restrictions, assets freeze, travel bans,
and transaction denials, for example. Countries,
entities within target countries like their militaries or branches of
government, companies, banks and individuals have had sanctions imposed on them
by the United Nations Security Council. Since
1966 the UNSC has put in place sanction regimes on 726 individuals and 273
entities.
“Sanctions are
a common tool for seeking to influence foreign governments and individuals to
change their behaviour. The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) can impose
sanctions in response to a threat to international peace and security.” (mfat.govt.nz)
Sanctions can
be imposed by UNSC or by countries with the political and economic clout to do
so. By far, the United States is the country that imposes the most with "three
times as many sanctions as any other country or international body, targeting a
third of all nations with some kind of financial penalty on people, properties
or organizations.” (Wikipedia) A list of over 12,000 individuals,
entities and countries.
IN TERMS OF ACTIONS
against individuals, the July 2025 sanctioning by the United States of the United
Nations Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian
Territories, Francesca Albanese, stands out as a particularly shameful abuse of
governmental power.
“Albanese has
been a vocal critic of Israel's treatment of Palestinians, and…published a report accusing over
60 companies, including some U.S. firms, of supporting Israeli settlements in
the West Bank and military actions in Gaza.” (Reuters)
Albanese, an
Italian citizen, was denied a visa to enter the United States, even though she’s
a UN diplomat and had duties to attend the opening 2025 fall session in New
York. (She had to attend virtually.) The sanctions froze her American assets
and bank accounts; her credit cards no longer worked. She could no longer
access her American healthcare plan or have transactions with American
companies, banks, other services, etc. The sanctions regime imposed on Albanese
significantly affected her professional and personal life, though she remains
the UN Special Rapporteur for Palestine. [One spunky gal! Ed.]
And over the
last few years, it’s been one Russian oligarch (or bank or whatever) after
another being sanctioned, their property in the West seized, their assets
frozen by the U.S, EU, et al, until they surely must have run out sanctions or
oligarchs by now!
👉HERE'S THE QUESTION TO ANSWER: What is the difference between the
sanctions imposed on Russian oligarchs and ones placed on Colonel Baud? The
answer is: they’re the same. The only difference is that Baud is a
citizen of the EU not a foreign national living abroad. The EU is using a
sanctions regime meant to target those living outside the EU and who
might be considered enemies or at least acting against the interests of the EU
or acting in ways that are contrary to EU “values”. As Colonel Baud put it when
interviewed shortly after he made the list: “The EU now considers its own
citizens as enemies.”1
LIKE ALBANESE who was sanctioned by the U.S., Baud has had his bank
accounts and assets within the EU frozen. He cannot withdraw money or use his
credit cards. He cannot engage in any business transactions with EU companies
or services, and I suspect even his access to healthcare, private or public is
denied, without express permission. (From whom?) Furthermore, he cannot travel
within the EU, within the Schengen “free borders” system. Banks and businesses
within the EU will not have anything to do with him, fearful they would come
under fire from European Union fascists commissioners and be slapped with secondary sanctions or penalties themselves. No money can be transferred to him from abroad,
nor from inside the EU. If Colonel Baud wanted to return to Switzerland, to
access his Swiss bank account for example, and he could somehow get to Switzerland,
a non-EU state, he would not be allowed to return. It's as if Baud is being ‘shunned’ by Europe. This is truly Kafkaesque and a ‘catch-22’ trap Baud finds himself ensnared in.2
👉As I’ve said, sanctions regimes are meant to address foreign
“threats”. But going forward, they may increasingly be used to silence dissenting voices within
the EU. It’s telling that this latest sanctions list was assembled during a
meeting of EU foreign ministers and was presented to the European
Council for adoption by Kaja Kallas, the EU’s foreign affairs chief. Baud
points out internal sanctions protocols override European legal
practices whereby, under normal circumstances, an accused is given warning of the state’s actions; they have the
right to legal representation during the charging and pretrial regime, and have
their day in court in a timely fashion. Colonel Baud was given no warning
he was to be listed. There was no forum, no court or tribunal for him to attend and defend himself against these charges. A decision was made by the European Council and he was given notice he was on the sanctions list. It was a fait acompli and as far removed from proper legal procedings in a democracy as you can get. Furthermore, he has no clear path to make enquires about his case, nor any clear procedure to challenge it.
There are few legal
avenues open to him. This is because sanctioning is a political
process separate from legal system. He may get a lawyer to challenge the
ruling, but the court would almost certainly conclude they have no jurisdiction or judicial authority to compel the EU Commission to rescind its decision.
Even the EU’s highest court, the European Court of Justice (ECJ), should it
even decide to hear the case, might not have the jurisdiction or authority to abrogate the
European Commission’s decision to place Colonel Baud on its list. The high
court would be able to examine the rather brief “Statement
of Reasons” given for sanctioning the Swiss National for accuracy only.
[#57, p. 11 of “List”] Suppose the Statement claimed, incorrectly, that Jacques
Baud was a French national. The court could issue an injunction to cease
and desist. In other words, the ECJ would likely be limited to a narrow
examination of the case, just whether the nuts and bolts of the Statement were
accurate. 👉AND THE KICKER HERE is that the European Commission could simply reissue
a corrected version of the Statement of Reasons and put Baud back on the list.
Easy-peasy.
IIUC, it's a political case that can be resolved only by political means. Not through the courts. Courts at all levels, it seems, would run into similar jurisdiction issues, and the same goes for human rights tribunals. All of them would hit the brick wall where they have no authority to overrule the European
Commission, even if Baud's legal and human rights, as spelled out in the EU's own founding charter, are being trampled on by the current wrecking crew in Brussels!
IT'S CLEAR that Colonel Baud’s legal rights of due process, of legal
representation during the charging period, and a prompt trial by a jury of his
peers are subverted by the sanctions process. So, too, are his human
rights. In Brussels, he cannot access his bank. He cannot use credit/debit
cards. He would need special dispensation from, I assume, the EU Commission
itself. His rights of freedom of movement and expression, even his right to work are trampled on by power-hungry technocrats. Put yourself in his position. If
he wants to buy groceries, he needs to engage with the EU bureaucracy at its
highest level, a cumbersome, time-consuming, expensive and Byzantine process simply to get permission to buy a loaf of bread. It's outrageous! Frans Kafka must be spinning in his grave!
NEIGHBOURS, FRIENDS, COLLEAGUES make offerings of support. But
money cannot be transferred from Switzerland to Colonel Baud. If someone wished
to send him money electronically that would be flagged by the banks and credit card
companies and stopped. Even if someone wanted to “Uber Eats” a bag of groceries
to him, the individual could be charged with..what? Over-kindness? And the
service could receive secondary sanctions or an onerous penalty.
Colonel Baud suggests that deliveries to his address would be flagged by the authorities.
Fortunately, he has received help from neighbours and friends with food, but this is an untenable
situation and a gross violation of his legal and human rights. His lawyer is
currently making an appeal to the European Commission, in what will be a messy, convuluted and costly
process with a limited margin for success. Baud suggests part of the problem is
what I mentioned earlier: these sanctions are meant to be placed on
individuals and entities outside the EU. He gives the clarifying example
of a typical country’s security apparatus. Most countries have an institution
for foreign threats and a separate one for internal threats. For example:
Army vs. Police
MI6 vs. MI5 in Britain
CIA vs. FBI in the United
States
CSIS vs. the Mounties in Canada(?)
PROBLEMS OCCUR when you confuse or conflate the two systems. The
former USSR combined services for external and internal threats under one roof—the KGB.
Baud notes dryly that the EU has created ‘its own KGB’ by such actions.
👉BAUD HAS NOT broken any laws. He is not a threat, a terrorist, or a “mouthpiece”
for pro-Russian propaganda like the Commission’s Statement of Reasons claims.
He is neither a propagandist (though Baud notes creating propaganda is not illegal), nor is he someone who ‘makes up conspiracy theories’, also
something that is not illegal. But by circumventing the legal system and using
vague, ill-defined political powers and tools, the EU is attempting to silence those who
ask critical and uncomfortable questions about, for example, the Ukraine war, or about Russia-EU-NATO-United
States relations. In his carefully argued, unbiased investigations it is
obvious to anyone who listens to him that he is sincere in his beliefs and scrupulous in his analysis, dealing with facts, not conjecture or 'wishcasting'. He pushes back, against the party line, for example, by saying Ukraine has lost the
war, a view that runs counter to the government's narrative and MSM's talking-heads. He also
says that Russia was provoked into invading Ukraine in order to counter what it considers to be an existential threat from NATO’s
ever-eastward expansion to its borders, with a Ukraine in NATO being a bridge too far. Again, Jacques Baud's views may be contrary to those held by EU authorities, even heresy to some, but expressing them in public forums (and providing convincing arguments supporting his claims) is not illegal. At least not yet.
👉AND for his measured and scholarly analysis, and thoughtful commentary, he is to be
sanctioned into silence.3
CHEERS, JAKE. _____________________________________
* Sanctions against a country the size of Russia,
with its natural resources and mature industrial base have failed to cripple it’s economy or change its war aims in Ukraine.
1. Jacques Baud is
the second Swiss national to be hit with sanctions related to supposed Russian
propaganda claims in recent months. The Swiss-Cameroonian pan-African
activist Nathalie Yamb was banned from entering the EU and her assets in the EU were frozen in April of this year.
2. Kafkaesque is used to
describe situations that are disorientingly and illogically complex in a
surreal or nightmarish way. It can be used to describe any situation or
literary work, which often involves characters navigating bizarre bureaucracies
(unnecessarily complicated government systems full of confusing and
contradictory procedures and paperwork)” (Dictionary.com)
Catch-22 "is a paradoxical, no-win situation where the only
solution to a problem is denied by a rule or circumstance inherent in the
problem itself, creating an impossible loop, like needing experience for a job,
but needing a job to get experience. From Joseph Heller's 1961 novel, it
describes illogical rules that trap individuals, often highlighting arbitrary
authority or bureaucracy, as seen [in the novel] when an Airforce pilot must be
insane to be grounded but by applying to be grounded (for being insane) that proves
the pilot is sane (for not wanting to fly and be killed), thus forcing them to
fly.” (ibid.)
3. The Swiss government has provided Baud with less than fulsome support. Baud reckons this is because Switzerland wishes to have closer
ties with the EU (it is not a member of the EU) and doesn’t want to ruffle any
feathers as it negotiates. The Swiss people, on the other hand, are
more engaged with Baud’s case. They look at what the EU Commission has done to
trample on Colonel Baud’s legal and human rights and are increasingly concerned about
becoming intertwined with an institution that is becoming more repressive with
each passing day. With more attention paid to Baud’s case, public
pressure may sway the nabobs in Brussels to remove him from the list. Or they may
stick to their guns and use their new, extra-judicial cudgel to further damage freedom of
speech in the EU. Time will tell.
[Finallly,
I think Colonel Baud's case and others are 'test runs' to see how far
the EU bureaucracy can go in clamping down on freedom of expression and
dissenting views. The same thing was said about the 2022 Trucker Strike
in Canada where participants' and supporters' bank accounts were frozen
by the federal government to break the protests in Ottawa and out west.
Stay tuned. It's going to be a rocky 2026, and the year's only eight
days old! Ed.]
p.s. A bit of good news is a recent appeal to the EU Commission that is being sent today with the signatures of dozens of academics, political commentators and journalists. We will see if their appeal falls on deaf ears.
