Policy:Policy Group

The policy group monitors the political situation and the sanction initiatives of national governments, and evaluates proposed sanctions in light of the project's guiding principles and precedents in international law and norms, including those governing fundamental human rights of freedom of expression and access to information. 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 The policy group is also responsible for determining when existing sanctions should be repealed.

The work of the policy group is done on the discussion mailing list (which you're welcome to join, or you can consult its archives of past discussion) and its results are published here.

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Open Policy Questions

• The "human shield" problem
• Data formatting issues
• Intake database

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2022

Russia

The policy group is beginning by discussing the sanctions imposed by the international community on Russia (and, to a lesser degree, Belarus) and individuals and organizations as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Some notable Internet-related sanction events connected with the invasion include:

• February 23: European Union enacts broad economic sanctions on Russia
• February 25: European Union further broadens economic sanctions on Russia
• February 28: Ericsson suspends deliveries to Russia
• March 2: SWIFT disconnects Russian banks
• March 2: European Union sanctions Russian propaganda agencies RT and Sputnik
• March 3: Sabre deplatforms Aeroflot
• March 4: Oracle, SAP, and Microsoft suspend sales in Russia
• March 5: Cogent disconnects Russian customers
• March 6: Netflix suspends service in Russia
• March 8: Lumen disconnects Russian customers
• March 9: European Union extends financial sanctions to Belarus
• March 14: The London Internet Exchange (LINX) disconnects Russian networks
• March 14: Instagram ceases operations in Russia
• March 15: UK sanctions "Internet Research Agency" and two other troll farms
• March 17: Suspension of the Russian Federation and Belarus from CEPT Membership
• March 21: Yandex sanctioned in Latvia

We are also collecting links to press coverage of Internet-related sanctions on Russia. Please feel free to contribute, sorted by date.

As a proposed process, here's a Table of 2022 Sanctions Against Russia and Belarus that we can fill out.