Abstract
This article analyses attempts by the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA), the sovereign wealth fund of Libya, to challenge the domestic implementation of asset-freezing measures requested by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the United Kingdom (UK) and Italy. The UNSC requested that states freeze LIA assets in early 2011 before partially easing the restrictions imposed in September of the same year, while the ICC requested the freezing of assets belonging to the then Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, and two further accused persons shortly thereafter. The article scrutinises how these measures were incorporated into the legal orders of the UK and Italy before analysing how the LIA has challenged these actions in the Italian courts and those of England and Wales. In so doing, it aims to demonstrate that domestic courts offer additional fora in which individuals (and entities) might seek to enforce the legal protection to which they are entitled when faced with their assets having been frozen by states at the request of the UNSC and/or the ICC.
Highlights
In early 2011, responding to the outbreak of the Libyan civil war, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) requested UN member states to freeze the assets of Muammar Gaddafi and five members of his immediate family.[1]
This article analyses attempts by the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA), the sovereign wealth fund of Libya, to challenge the domestic implementation of asset-freezing measures requested by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the United Kingdom (UK) and Italy
The UNSC requested that states freeze LIA assets in early 2011 before partially easing the restrictions imposed in September of the same year, while the ICC requested the freezing of assets belonging to the Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, and two further accused persons shortly thereafter
Summary
In early 2011, responding to the outbreak of the Libyan civil war, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) requested UN member states to freeze the assets of Muammar Gaddafi and five members of his immediate family.[1] Less than one month later, the UNSC adopted further measures, expanding the freeze to cover the assets of the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA), Libya’s sovereign wealth fund (SWF), among other individuals and entities.[2] The freeze was, in turn, implemented in the domestic legal orders of multiple states in which the SWF and its subsidiaries had a significant presence. In the final part of the article we assert that domestic courts might, in certain cases, serve as additional fora in which individuals (and entities) might contest asset-freezing measures imposed against them by the responsible national authorities pursuant to a request by the UNSC and/or the ICC (Section 5)
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