UN sanctions are the only genuinely universal ones, and they are also the least directly enforced. The Security Council obliges member states to implement measures; it does not itself penalise anyone.
Why the Panels of Experts matter here
For research on evasion, the Panels are the single richest open resource in existence.
A Panel investigates in the field, corresponds with member states, examines recovered materiel, inspects corporate documents and vessel records, and publishes annual and interim reports with photographs, company filings and movement data as annexes. Nothing published by a financial regulator approaches that level of specific, evidenced detail about how a scheme actually operated.
That is why this site cites Panel reports by report number and paragraph wherever it can: it lets a reader check the underlying finding rather than take a summary on trust.
The North Korea panel is gone. Russia vetoed the renewal of its mandate in March 2024 and the mandate lapsed on 30 April; S/2024/215 is the final report. Eleven states established the Multilateral Sanctions Monitoring Team outside the UN system to continue the work, and it has published two reports since. A monitoring body created by resolution can be ended by a single permanent member’s veto while the sanctions it monitors remain in force — which is the clearest illustration on this site of the gap between a measure and its enforcement.
The listing and delisting process
Committee listings are made by consensus, which means a single member can block one, and delisting runs through a focal point or, for the ISIL and Al-Qaida regime, an Ombudsperson. The politics of that process are the reason UN lists are shorter and slower-moving than national ones.