On June 20, 2017, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced that it had added 38 individuals and entities to the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List (SDN List) and 20 entities to the Sectoral Sanctions Identification List (SSI List) under US sanctions targeting Russia and Crimea. On June 21, 2017, the US Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) also announced that it would add some of these SDN entities to the Entity List.
On 15 June 2017, the Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs, the Hon. Julie Bishop, announced that Australia’s Nuclear Cooperation Agreement with Ukraine has come into force, following the completion of both governments’ respective treaty processes. The announcement stated:
On May 23, 2017, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) published in the Federal Register a notice publishing the updated list of items defined as medical supplies and generally licensed for exportation or reexportation to the Crimea region of Ukraine
On 14 March 2017, Ukrainian President Porosheno announced that the Ukrainian Parliament (the Verkhovna Rada) ratified the Canada-Ukraine Free Trade Agreement (Agreement), which had been signed on 11 July 2016. Canada’s Parliament had approved the agreement earlier.
On 9 February 2017, the Official Journal published Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2017/217 of 5 December 2016 amending Annex II to Regulation (EU) No 978/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council applying a scheme of generalised tariff preferences. The criteria for granting tariff preferences under the general arrangement of the Generalised Scheme of Preferences (GSP) provide that a country that has been classified by the World Bank as a high-income or an upper-middle income country for three consecutive years, or a country that benefits from a preferential market access arrangement which provides the same tariff preferences as the GSP, or better, for substantially all trade, should not benefit from GSP. The list of GSP beneficiary countries is reviewed annually. If a country’s status changes, it is given time for an orderly adaption to the new status.
On January 13, 2017, the President signed Notice of February 13, 2017 — Continuation of National Emergency with Respect to Ukraine which extends for an additional year the national emergency first declared on March 6, 2014 in Executive Order (E.O.) 13660,
On December 27, 2016, the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) published in the Federal Register a final rule [Docket No. 161206999–6999–01] that amends the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) by adding twenty-three entities to the Entity List. The twenty-three entities who are added to the Entity List have been determined by the U.S. Government to be acting contrary to the national security or foreign policy taking this action to ensure the efficacy of existing sanctions on the Russian Federation (Russia) for violating international law and fueling the conflict in eastern Ukraine. These entities will be listed on the Entity List under the destinations of Russia and the Crimea region of Ukraine.
On December 20, 2016, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) posted an update to the Specially Designated Nationals List and the Sectoral Sanctions Identifications List to target sanctions evasion and other activities related to the conflict in Ukraine. Concurrent with that action, OFAC also published Russia/Ukraine-related General License 11, “Authorizing Certain Transactions With FAU Glavgosekspertiza Rossii.” This general license authorizes certain transactions that are ordinarily incident and necessary to requesting, contracting for, paying for,…
On November 28, 2016, the Government of Canada further expanded its sanctions against the Crimea region of Ukraine, which are contained in the Special Economic Measures (Ukraine) Regulations (the “Regulations”) made pursuant to the Special Economic Measures Act.
Member countries of the World Trade Organization (WTO) are required under the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT Agreement) to report to the WTO all proposed technical regulations that could affect trade with other Member countries. The WTO Secretariat distributes this information in the form of “notifications” to all Member countries. The chart below summarizes notifications from the WTO in English received and posted by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) during the past month.