UNSCR 2664 (2022)

United Nations Security Council Resolution 2664 (2022) permits specified humanitarian activity that would otherwise encounter the Council's asset freezes. Adopted on 9 December 2022 under Chapter VII, it covers necessary funds, economic resources, goods and services for timely humanitarian assistance or other activities supporting basic human needs. It does not exempt every humanitarian transaction from every sanction. [1]

Providers and activity

Paragraph 1 identifies the eligible providers. They include the United Nations and its specified bodies and agencies, international organisations, humanitarian organisations with General Assembly observer status and their members, and bilaterally or multilaterally funded non-governmental organisations participating in specified UN plans, appeals or OCHA-coordinated humanitarian clusters. Employees, grantees, subsidiaries and implementing partners qualify only while and to the extent that they act in those capacities. Individual sanctions committees may add appropriate others within their mandates. The provider category and the connection between the transaction and the covered activity both matter. [1, paragraph 1]

The exemption concerns asset freezes imposed by the Council or its sanctions committees. It does not itself remove arms embargoes, travel bans, separate sectoral restrictions or autonomous national sanctions. Paragraph 4 gives it priority over conflicting earlier resolutions to the extent of the conflict and applies it to future Council asset freezes unless the Council expressly decides otherwise. It expressly preserves paragraph 1 of Resolution 2615 (2021), the separate Afghanistan humanitarian provision. [1, paragraphs 1 and 4; 3, paragraphs 31-39]

For the ISIL and Al-Qaida regime under Resolutions 1267, 1989 and 2253, paragraph 2 initially limited application to two years. Resolution 2761, adopted on 6 December 2024, continued it without specifying a new expiry date and retained monitoring requirements. This does not make the regime's other prohibitions disappear. [2, paragraphs 1-4]

Safeguards and reporting

Resolution 2664 requests reasonable efforts to minimise prohibited benefits reaching designated actors through direct or indirect provision or diversion. Paragraphs 5 and 6 provide for Emergency Relief Coordinator briefings, information from providers, implementation guidance and committee monitoring. Resolution 2761 reiterates reasonable efforts to eliminate or in any event minimise prohibited benefits for its specified regime. These are material parts of the arrangement, not evidence that diversion has been eliminated. [1, paragraphs 3 and 5-6; 2, paragraphs 2-4]

Domestic implementation

On 20 December 2022, OFAC announced new or amended general licences across several US programmes. They addressed official government business, specified international organisations, certain NGO activities and specified personal, non-commercial agricultural and medical supplies. The implementing rules took effect on 21 December. [4]

The NGO provision added to 31 CFR 594.520 illustrates the domestic conditions: qualifying non-commercial activities, an NGO that is not itself blocked, a limitation on transfers intended for blocked beneficiaries with specified payment exceptions, and preservation of other applicable laws. This is a dated implementation example. A present transaction requires the current programme text, applicable licence and relevant jurisdictions. The UN resolution alone is not a complete transaction-level authority. [5, pp. 78504-78505]

Operational limits

Legal permission cannot establish that a bank, insurer or supplier will perform a transaction. The Secretary-General's September 2023 implementation report described overlapping restrictions, over-compliance, financial-service refusals and operating costs. It reported some improvements but considered it too early to determine the resolution's overall impact. Those findings are dated evidence, not a measurement of conditions in October 2026. [3, paragraphs 3-5, 14, 20-23 and 39-46]

Assessment should therefore distinguish the exemption's legal scope from payment success, cost, delay and programme continuity. Providers and intermediaries must establish the relevant freeze, eligible provider, covered activity and applicable implementing authority. Evidence about due diligence and diversion remains relevant. No claim of universal access, immunity from fraud or removal of independent prohibitions follows from the exemption. [1, paragraphs 1 and 3-6; 3, paragraphs 39-46; 5]

See also

Humanitarian exemptions and general licences · Humanitarian cost of sanctions · UNSCR 1267 (1999) · Afghanistan central bank reserve freeze (2021-present) · Over-compliance (de-risking) · Asset freeze

Sources

1. United Nations Security Council, Resolution 2664 (2022)&l=en&t=pdf), 9 December 2022, paragraphs 1-8.Return 1
2. United Nations Security Council, Resolution 2761 (2024)&l=en&t=pdf), 6 December 2024, paragraphs 1-5.
3. United Nations Secretary-General, *Implementation of Security Council resolution 2664 (2022)*, S/2023/658, 8 September 2023, especially paragraphs 3-5, 14, 20-23 and 31-46.
4. United States Office of Foreign Assets Control, *Publication of Humanitarian-related Regulatory Amendments and Associated Frequently Asked Questions*, 20 December 2022; FAQ 1105, released 20 December 2022.Return 1
5. United States Office of Foreign Assets Control, *Addition of General Licenses to OFAC Sanctions Regulations for Certain Transactions of Nongovernmental Organizations and Related to Agricultural Commodities, Medicine, Medical Devices, Replacement Parts and Components, or Software Updates for Medical Devices*, Federal Register 87, no. 244 (21 December 2022): 78484-78507, especially 78504-78505, added section 594.520. The retained rule is the 2022 text.