Recently, the UK government proudly announced that the sanctions system will also be used against criminials: UK to launch world first sanctions regime to snare people smugglers travelling upstream. The message contains the familiar tough crime-fighting language with lots of ‘cracking down’, ‘smash the gangs’ and similar texts and with the mantra ‘prevent, combat, deter and disrupt’. Of course they call their own solutions ‘novel and bold’.

It is important who is ‘suspicious’ according to the UK authorities because they will have to deal with immediate travel bans, social media blackouts and restrictions on phone usage.

I will be interested to see if the UK government also pays attention to faults made by the government that can harm decent citizens. Furthermore, the question arises whether the system of international sanctions is intended for this purpose.