Welcome to the Internet Sanctions Project

This is an open, Internet community governed, project which produces BGP and RPZ feeds of network resources (IP addresses, Autonomous System numbers, and domain names) associated with sanctioned entities. These feeds facilitate Internet network operators in complying with the sanction requirements imposed by their respective governments.

Who is this for, and why does it exist?

National governments enact sanctions as (usually) deescalatory punitive measures against entities, usually other nations. The private sector within each nation is responsible for enacting those sanctions. The global, transnational nature of the Internet makes compliance with diverse sanctions regimes difficult for Internet organizations. At the same time, broadly-defined nationally-imposed Internet sanctions tend to disproportionately affect the civilian population of sanctioned countries; this is both counterproductive and violates their human rights to freedom of communication and access to information. This project brings together governments and Internet organizations to provide a globally-harmonized Internet sanctions imposition mechanism which is "lighter touch" than might otherwise be mandated, and does not impinge upon civilians' access to information and communications. This project is neither pro-sanction nor anti-sanction; it exists to facilitate public-sector/private-sector coordination while ensuring that the human rights of civilians are protected.

Origin of the project

This project originated in an open letter from leaders of the multistakeholder Internet governance community, calling for constructive dialog about the imposition of Internet-related sanctions, and for a principled approach to sanctions which would explicitly rule the civilian population to be not a valid target. Established civil society groups such as the Global Network Initiative have expressed the same principles:

GNI supports efforts to sanction and hold accountable Russian government actors, as well as those abetting its aggression. However, some governments have been calling for retaliatory measures that are overly broad and would have unnecessary and disproportionate impacts on freedom of expression. GNI also notes with concern that well intentioned sanctions measures, as well as private and public campaigns, are exerting significant pressure on companies to withdraw products and services that help maintain information and communications network connectivity in Russia. It is critical to maintain infrastructure interconnection between Russian networks and the global Internet, as well as to preserve access for people in Russia to open platforms and services, so that they can continue to find spaces to organize in opposition to the war, report and share information about conditions in Russia, and have access to sources that are not controlled or restricted by Russian government censorship.

Structure

The project is implemented by five working groups:

• A policy group monitors the political situation and the sanction initiatives of national governments, and evaluates proposed sanctions in light of the project's principles. If a sanction is deemed in-scope, the policy group defines the sanctioned entities and passes them to the OSINT group. The policy group is also responsible for determining when existing sanctions should be repealed and for liaising with governments which are considering declaring this mechanism to be sufficient compliance with their nationally-defined sanctions.

• An OSINT group investigates and catalogs the Internet resources (IP addresses, Autonomous System numbers, and domain names) held by sanctioned entities.

• An oversight board provides a final check on which resources are included in the blocking feed. When anything is added to the feed, an announcement will be posted to the (read-only) announcement email list, which you're welcome to subscribe to, to keep track of the project's outcomes.

• An operations group keeps the BGP and RPZ feed publishing mechanisms working.

• A research group is responsible for metrics and monitoring of the system and its effectiveness, and liaison with the academic community.

Participation

This is a community volunteer effort, and your participation is welcome! Please consider reading the FAQ and subscribing to the email discussion lists as starting-points.