On December 9, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 2664, a landmark resolution put forward by the United States and Ireland, that created a carveout for humanitarian efforts in all UN sanctions regimes. Today, the United States became the first country to implement Resolution 2664 to ease the delivery of humanitarian aid across a number of U.S. sanctions programs while ensuring the aid is not diverted or abused by malicious actors.
Specifically, the U.S. Department of the Treasury issued or amended general licenses to support the humanitarian community’s lifesaving efforts that will ensure a baseline of consistent authorizations, streamline compliance for humanitarian and commercial actors, and remove impediments, including unintentional, second-order impacts, to the delivery of legitimate humanitarian aid around the world. Most importantly, this effort will help save lives by making it easier for humanitarian actors to spring into action when situations emerge that require food, medicine, shelter, and other urgent assistance.
Today’s actions by the U.S. Department of the Treasury, combined with the actions taken by the UN Security Council, will help our partners deliver aid with greater speed and confidence, all while maintaining safeguards that ensure humanitarian aid gets to its intended recipients.
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