United Nations arms embargoes - Iraq

United Nations arms embargoes

Iraq

In August 1990 Security Council resolution 661 established comprehensive sanctions against Iraq, including an arms embargo.

Resolution 661 decided that states should prohibit ‘the sale or supply by their nationals or from their territories or using their flag vessels of any commodities or products, including weapons or any other military equipment, whether or not originating in their territories’.

Following the fall of the Iraqi government the UN Security Council modified the sanctions regime in May 2003 in UN Security Council resolution 1483. The arms embargo on Iraq was maintained, with a provision permitting transfers required by a newly established authority to maintain security in Iraq and along its borders.

Resolution 1483 decided that ‘with the exception of prohibitions related to the sale or supply to Iraq of arms and related materiel other than those arms and related materiel required by the Authority to serve the purposes of this and other related resolutions, all prohibitions related to trade with Iraq and the provision of financial or economic resources to Iraq established by resolution 661 (1990) and subsequent relevant resolutions, including resolution 778 (1992) of 2 October 1992, shall no longer apply’.

In June 2004 UN Security Council Resolution 1546 decided that ‘the prohibitions related to the sale or supply to Iraq of arms and related materiel under previous resolutions shall not apply to arms or related materiel required by the Government of Iraq or the multinational force’ while stressing that all states were obliged to abide strictly by the restrictions on supply of arms to other end-users in Iraq.