Sanctions

Biden administration announces new zero-trust standards; Cyberattacks against Belarussian railways; Red Cross hit by cyberattack; U.S. threatens sanctions on Russia; China announces support for innovation in emerging fields.

Log4j vulnerability a serious threat; Huawei documents reveal sale of surveillance technologies; Ukraine arrests dozens in data theft ring; Biden ramps up restrictions on Chinese firms; Oppo launches its first in-house chip.

The impact of the Biden administration's threat to impose sanctions on certain individuals involved in the Tigray conflict in Ethiopia is likely to be limited.

While EU’s issuance of the declaration of solidarity in response to the SolarWinds cyber campaign is a sign of progress, it fails to provide clarification on what, if any, further actions can be expected from Brussels.

Russia responds to U.S. sanctions, expels ten diplomats and eight officials; UK government launches campaign against foreign spies; U.S. lawmakers introduce ambitious anti-surveillance technology bill; Facebook targets two separate Palestinian hacker groups; and the European Union proposes new limits on artificial intelligence.

Data of 1.3 million Clubhouse users leaked online; Biden taps National Security Agency veteran as first national cyber director; Operation to block hacker access to Microsoft Exchange servers approved by Justice Department; The United States imposes new sanctions on Russia for SolarWinds breach; and Romania bars China and Huawei from domestic 5G development.

Western countries view the cyber domain as a highly uncertain and potentially escalatory environment, which takes more forceful response options off the table.

Nolan Quinn is a research associate for the Council on Foreign Relations’ Africa Program. On January 19, U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo—on his last full day in the position—announced visa restrictions on “Tanzanian officials responsible for or complicit in undermining” the general elections held in late October last year. As of yet, none of the individuals sanctioned have been identified publicly. In announcing the measures, Secretary Pompeo asserted that “there are consequences for interfering in the democratic process,” while the U.S. embassy in Tanzania said it had “kept its promise” to hold accountable those officials who had interfered in the elections. Prior to Tanzania’s elections, Secretary Pompeo released a nonspecific statement urging African governments to hold “free, fair, inclusive elections.” The Tanzanian government, led by President John Magufuli and the increasingly authoritarian ruling party, Chama cha Mapinduzi (CCM), undoubtedly failed to heed Secretary Pompeo’s call. However, the same could be said of incumbents in the Ivory Coast, Guinea, and Uganda, none of which faced a response from the Trump administration beyond rhetoric. While the reasoning behind the decision to single out Tanzania—one that belies the Trump administration’s weak record of defending democracy in Africa—is not clear, what is apparent is that U.S.-Tanzania relations have sharply soured in the past decade. Until recently, the U.S.-Tanzania partnership was strong. In 2013, President Barack Obama became the third successive U.S. president to travel to Tanzania. In a joint press conference with Tanzania’s President Jakaya Kikwete, who was also the first African head of state to visit the Obama White House, President Obama commended Tanzanians—and their government—for “doing their part to advance the good governance and transparency upon which democracy and prosperity depend.” Obama, in touching on the “spirit of friendship” the two countries enjoyed, was not merely offering a one-sided, feel-good bromide: from 2006 to 2012, approval of U.S. leadership in Tanzania stood at an average of over 72 percent; in 2015, 78 percent of Tanzanians expressed confidence that President Obama would “do the right thing regarding world affairs.” Tanzania has also consistently been among the top two or three recipients of bilateral aid administered by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in sub-Saharan Africa. However, the 2015 annulment of an election in Zanzibar—one initially praised as the smoothest in the semiautonomous archipelago’s history—precipitated what has been a rapid deterioration in bilateral relations. Citing the Zanzibar election and limitations on freedom of expression, in March 2016 the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), a U.S. foreign assistance agency, suspended its partnership with Tanzania. Magufuli further irritated relations when, in June 2016, his government unilaterally cancelled a contract with Symbion Power, a U.S. company that had received more than $110 million in MCC procurement awards. Pressure to act against the Tanzanian government rose further amid a crackdown on human rights, which included the president’s pledge to set up a “surveillance squad” targeting the gay community. On January 31, 2020, the Trump administration announced sanctions against Paul Makonda, the regional commissioner of Dar es Salaam, for his role in targeting “marginalized people,” and on the same day, the White House added Tanzania to a list of countries—considered by some commentators the final iteration of President Trump’s much-maligned “Muslim ban”—for its apparent failures to share public-safety and terrorism-related information. Pompeo’s final imposition of sanctions for electoral malfeasance is likely to command support across the aisle. In the U.S. House of Representatives, a bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced a resolution noting discontent with the Tanzanian government’s conduct in business disputes and its role in suppressing dissent in the lead-up to the elections. Following the vote, Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) called violence by security forces “the culmination of five years of sustained attacks by the Magufuli administration against the country’s democratic institutions,” while U.S. Ambassador to Tanzania Donald J. Wright, a political appointee, noted that “detaining opposition leaders is not the act of a government confident in its victory.” Tanzanian opposition figures have welcomed Pompeo’s move. Zitto Kabwe, a Tanzanian opposition leader, had already expressed a desire for other countries to sanction Tanzania. Fatma Karume, a former president of the Tanganyika Law Society who was disbarred seemingly for her political activism, thanked the United States for “saying NO to IMPUNITY” and giving those “who believe in DEMOCRACY and HUMAN RIGHTS renewed vigour.” Magufuli’s main contender for the presidency in October’s elections, Tundu Lissu, called the move a “clear and unmistakable warning to dictators who stole elections.” The question for the Biden administration is not whether it will repeal sanctions against Tanzanian officials. Without wholesale changes in Tanzania’s political climate, it will not, though the broader travel ban is almost sure to be axed. More pressing is for President Biden and his coterie of advisers to decide whether to send similarly strong messages to other authoritarians in Africa, particularly in Uganda, where reported abuses have been on par or worse than those in Tanzania. While the United States’ democratic credentials have certainly been damaged following the assault on the U.S. Capitol, failing to punish blatant abuses of human rights would do nothing more than leave autocrats comfortable in their ill-gotten victories.

On November 2—the day before the U.S. presidential election—more than seventy-one states party to the treaty that established the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued a statement in a UN General Assembly plenary session that affirmed their commitment "to preserve the tribunal's independence undeterred by any measures or threats against the Court, its officials, and those cooperating with it." Though the statement did not mention the United States, it was a response to the Trump administration's sanctions against the court's chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, and other ICC personnel. The statement was supported by NATO member states—except the United States—as well as by most other U.S. allies and friends. It was also supported by Nigeria, South Africa, and other African states. The 1998 Rome Statute established the ICC as a mechanism for holding governments accountable for crimes against humanity and genocide. A total of 123 states are party to it. In effect, it imposes limits on the national sovereignty of those states that accept its jurisdiction. Under President Bill Clinton, the United States signed [PDF] the Rome Statute. However, the George W. Bush administration declined to submit it to the Senate for ratification, and no U.S. administration has accepted ICC jurisdiction over the country or its citizens, though Barack Obama’s administration actively cooperated with it. The ICC is based in the Hague. Four of its eighteen judges are African, as is the chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, from The Gambia. However, all eight of its active investigations and eighteen active prosecutions involve African states and Africans. Authoritarian African rulers tend to loathe the ICC, accusing it of "racism" and "colonialism." Among others, Uganda (under President Yoweri Museveni) and South Africa (under former President Jacob Zuma) have threatened to withdraw from the court's jurisdiction, though none has actually done so. Fatou Bensouda, however, has pointed out that that six of the eight active investigations have been undertaken at the request of African governments.  At present, the chief prosecutor is looking into whether there are grounds for an ICC investigation in Afghanistan that would primarily focus on the Taliban and Afghani forces but also U.S. military units. She is also looking at complaints about Israel. (The Palestinian State accepts ICC jurisdiction, Israel does not.) Consistent with U.S. policy, the Trump administration forcefully rejects any ICC investigatory role regarding U.S. military forces in Afghanistan. Accordingly, it has imposed economic sanctions on Fatou Bensouda and other ICC personnel that presumably involve personal hardship, including revocation of visas and freezing of U.S. bank accounts. Administration use of economic sanctions has long been common—the Obama administration imposed some two thousand. But their focus was primarily criminals or rogue states, not human rights lawyers such as Bensouda. Further, the Trump administration's rhetoric against the ICC has been strong—a senior administration figure has raised the prospect of abolishing it. The Trump administration's rhetoric and imposition of sanctions on individuals are consistent with its "America First" ideology and adherence to maintenance of absolute American sovereignty, including over American forces stationed abroad. However, its style and rhetoric, more than the substance of its position, distance itself from its traditional allies and partners and human rights organizations. But the rhetoric is likely to be welcomed by authoritarian leaders in Africa—as well as elsewhere.

The Trump administration’s case for invoking “snapback” sanctions against Iran for violating the nuclear deal rests on shallow arguments that have left Washington alone in efforts to pressure Tehran.

New U.S. sanctions under the Caesar Act could compound the economic turmoil threatening to undo the Assad regime.

Germany's federal prosecutor has issued an international arrest warrant for suspected GRU hacker Dmitriy Sergeyevich Badin. This hints at the use of the European Union's Cyber Sanctions Regime to punish Russia for its cyber operations against EU member states.