Abstract
On 3 September 2008 the European Court of Justice (ECJ) handed down its decision in the joint cases of Kadi and Al Barakaat (C-402/05 P and C-415/05 P). With this decision the ECJ annulled Council Regulation 881/2002 implementing a UN Security Council Resolution on terrorist blacklists for not complying with the EU’s fundamental rights standard. It is clear now that EU legal acts implementing measures adopted by the UN Security Council do not escape the jurisdiction of the European judiciary. This raises a number of questions regarding the relation between EU law and international law, notably UN law. It equally highlights that the problems regarding the protection of listed individuals are far from being resolved. In the aftermath of the ECJ’s Kadi Decision, the EU institutions have adopted certain procedural changes of the blacklisting procedure, but the blacklists persist to remain in force and the applicants fail to be de-listed. The present article therefore analyses the concrete standard of protection of those whose names have been put on the lists. The analysis of the case law of the European judiciary indicates that the Council and the Commission are likely to be confronted with considerable problems if the amended blacklisting procedure is to come before the Courts once again. This concerns in particular the question of how much, and what kind of evidence must be submitted to the Courts. The difficulties in terms of implementing the UN blacklisting measures in EU law due to fundamental rights problems also underline the need to undertake a comprehensive reform of the blacklisting regime at the UN level.