Sep

14

Burma Sanctions Will Sunset (No OFAC Action Necessary)

Posted by at 11:46 pm on September 14, 2016
Category: Burma Sanctions • OFAC

Bagan by Staffan Scherz [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Flickr https://flic.kr/p/aAeXsZ [cropped and processed]President Obama announced today, after meeting with the newly elected President of Burma, that he intends to lift all remaining sanctions on Burma. With unusual alacrity, at least for the Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”), that agency issued FAQ #480 stating that its sanctions against Burma would disappear the moment that the President issues an executive order terminating the national emergency with respect to Burma. In other words, the Burmese Sanctions Regulations will immediately become ineffective even if it takes, as it probably will, months for OFAC to get around to pulling them down or issue a rule repealing them.

Of course, and not surprisingly, that FAQ may not be true. The restrictions on the import of jade and rubies from Burma were imposed by the infelicitously named “Tom Lantos Block Burmese JADE (Junta’s Anti-Democratic Efforts) Act of 2008” and cannot be removed until the White House makes certain notifications to Congress.

There is also the question of the status of blocked individuals after the President declares that the national emergency with respect to Burma is over. Section 5(b)(1) automatically blocked the property of certain persons in Burma and section 5(h) requires congressional notification before waiving that sanction. In 2009, the President issued a waiver as to all such persons not listed on the SDN List and that waiver has been congressionally notified.

But is President Obama really intending to remove everyone on the SDN List designated under the Burma sanctions including Steven Law and his companies such as Asia World? Law is on the list for narcotics trafficking, and there seems little reason to rehabilitate him simply because Burma has a democratically elected government. But if Law and his companies remain on the SDN list and the regulations go away, what happens to General License No. 20, which permits goods to be exported to Burma through Asia World ports? Without that license, exports to Burma from the United States will effectively be halted again.

Perhaps we need a few more FAQs.

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Copyright © 2016 Clif Burns. All Rights Reserved.
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2 Comments:

Just a quick note – Law is not designated as an SDNTK and the basis for his designation is pursuant to EO 13448 for supporting the Burmese military regime. Should the President take the legal steps to revoke the national emergency declaration and waive the JADE Act provision, his status is no different than any other BURMA designee.

Comment by Sam Cutler on September 16th, 2016 @ 9:44 am

    Thanks, Sam. I probably didn’t phrase that paragraph clearly enough. I also verified that Law was designated under the Burma program, and what I was trying to say was that it seemed unusual to remove him from the SDN list when his designation had nothing to do with democracy issues in Burma. If they re-designate him now as an SDNTK as part of any ultimate action on Burma, then they’ll need to do something about the provisions permitting use of Asia World Ports that will disappear with the Burma regulations once the EO ending the national emergency is issued.

    Comment by Clif Burns on September 16th, 2016 @ 11:26 am