Introduction
9
With most of the related organizations or arrangements headquartered outside of New York, the working group chairs conducted a number
of consultation trips to seek the views of those organizations and arrangements on the intersection with UN sanctions and opportunities for enhanced
mutually beneficial interaction. Among the organizations consulted were the
Vienna-based Wassenaar Arrangement, Nuclear Suppliers Group, IAEA and
CTBTO as well as the UNODC (TPB); Paris-based FATF and OECD (on
due diligence for the trade in certain natural resources); various parts of the
European Commission and the European External Action Service, SWIFT
and the European Banking Federation in Brussels; and the Hague-based
ICC and ICTY. Consultations were held with a group of senior compliance
officers of major U.S. financial institutions. The results of these consultations, many of which were of a fact-finding and preliminary character, were
reported back to the working group via postings on the project website and
orally at the series of meetings which was convened in New York to seek the
views of, primarily, UN bodies and Member States.
Working Group II meetings were open to all Member States and
benefitted from an active participation of several UN bodies, including the
DPA, ODA and OLA and several sanctions expert groups, and a number
of external organizations and institutions, including INTERPOL. A visit
to headquarters in Lyon could not be scheduled but INTERPOL officials
participated in NY meetings. Working group meetings were also open to
representatives of concerned private sector and academic groups, and written contributions were received and made available on the project website.
The working group examined the three issue domains, partly in the format
of plenary, partly in that of sub-groups, and summaries of the deliberations
were subsequently posted on the project website. Germany organised a wellattended practically-oriented workshop focused on national implementation
of export controls and sanctions by national regulatory agencies and the
private sector. Finally, a series of findings, common or specific to the three
subject matter areas was approved through silence procedure involving those
who had taken an active part in the work. In this process further valuable
remarks were taken into consideration. The Chair later developed this document into a working group report, which is available on the HLR website.
Working Group III
Chaired by Greece, Working Group III focused on ways to minimise the
humanitarian consequences of sanctions, enhance cooperation with regional