On January 13, 2022, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office of the UK published its Sanctions Regulations Report on Annual Reviews 2021, as required by section 30 of the Sanctions and Anti Money Laundering Act 2018 (“SAMLA”). The appropriate Minister is required to review each set of regulations made under SAMLA in order to assess whether they are still appropriate for their stated purpose.
This is the first Report on Annual Reviews since the end of the Brexit transition period. Prior to the close of the transition period, the FCDO made 99 statutory instruments under SAMLA, and transitioned 1,084 EU sanctions designations into UK law. Since then, the UK has established two autonomous sanctions regimes, one targeting human rights abuses, and the other supporting global anti-corruption efforts.
The introduction to the Annual Report describes the operation of UK sanctions, and enumerates the four types of sanctions: financial, trade, transport, and immigration sanctions. The Annex contains the Annual Reviews themselves, including a summary of the UK’s 33 sanctions regimes.