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Humanitarian exemptions: what Resolution 2664 changed and what is missing

· Helfen statt Blockieren editorial team

On 9 December 2022 the UN Security Council decided that humanitarian aid is exempt from all United Nations asset freezes. Almost four years later it is possible to say what the resolution has achieved: more legal certainty, individual breakthroughs on the ground, a wave of imitators. And where it ends: at sanctions of individual states, at criminal law against terrorism and at the caution of banks.

14UN sanctions regimes with asset freezes have since been covered uniformly by the exemptionStimson Center, 2025
27 of 39EU sanctions regimes contained an exemption on this model at the end of 2023ICRC, 23 Jan 2024
−40%bank enquiries about Norwegian Refugee Council payments in the months after the resolutionNRC, 15 Dec 2023
100 millionpeople, roughly, in Syria, Afghanistan, Yemen and the Sahel depend on humanitarian aidIPI, 2024, citing OCHA

What the resolution regulates

Until 2022 every UN sanctions regime had its own, often narrow exemptions; aid organisations had to check anew for each country whether a delivery was permitted. Resolution 2664, negotiated under the lead of Ireland and the US and adopted with 14 votes and India abstaining, replaces this with a single rule: funds, goods and services needed for humanitarian aid or basic needs do not breach the asset freezes. This applies to UN organisations, to aid organisations with observer status, to the Red Cross and to other recognised organisations. The resolution acknowledges that listed parties may benefit incidentally, for example when fees go to bodies controlled by a listed group; that is then no breach.

India abstained out of concern that terrorist groups could abuse the exemption. That is why it applied to the ISIL and Al-Qaida regime for only two years at first. With Resolution 2761 of 6 December 2024 it became indefinite there. According to the study by the International Peace Institute, humanitarian organisations, states and UN experts had by then reported no evidence that aid had been diverted or that listed parties benefited significantly more. The timeline of all steps since 1996 is in the lead article “Permitted and still blocked”.

Reach of the exemption

Left, what the resolution regulates in law; right, where aid can still get stuck.

What Resolution 2664 coversAll UN asset freezes14 regimes, since 2024 alsoISIL and Al-Qaida indefinitelyAid and basic human needsfunds, goods, servicesfor humanitarian purposesIncidental benefit is allowedwhen listed parties benefitincidentally, e.g. through feesWhat it does not coverSanctions of individual statesUS programmes, EU’s own regimesonly if they follow suitCriminal law against terrorismban on supportremains nationalBanks and donorsrisk appetite, contract clausesstill decide for themselvesWhat Resolution 2664 coversAll UN asset freezes14 regimes, since 2024 alsoISIL and Al-Qaida indefinitelyAid and basic human needsfunds, goods, servicesfor humanitarian purposesIncidental benefit is allowedwhen listed parties benefitincidentally, e.g. through feesWhat it does not coverSanctions of individual statesUS programmes, EU’s own regimesonly if they follow suitCriminal law against terrorismban on supportremains nationalBanks and donorsrisk appetite, contract clausesstill decide for themselves

Sources: UN SC/15134 and SC/15924; IPI, November 2024; Harvard PILAC, March 2024.

Who followed suit

Because the resolution is binding, all states must incorporate it into their implementation of UN sanctions. Many went further than they had to. In February 2023 the EU adopted the exemption in its regimes based on UN lists, in October 2023 created new regimes for Niger and Sudan with a standing exemption and in November 2023 added it to ten of its own regimes, including Myanmar, Venezuela and Zimbabwe. According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, at the end of 2023 27 of the EU’s 39 regimes contained an exemption on this model. The ICRC named gaps at the time in Syria (only time-limited), in the global human rights regime, in the counter-terrorism regime (an initially time-limited exemption followed there in February 2024) and in Iran and Moldova, where only a few organisations benefit.

EU sanctions regimes with a humanitarian exemption, end 2023

Number of regimes (UN-based, mixed and the EU’s own), 39 in total.

RegimesNumber
With an exemption on the model of Resolution 266427
Without such an exemption or only temporary or narrow12

Source: Huvé, Moulin, Ferraro (ICRC), Humanitarian Law and Policy Blog, 23 Jan 2024. Since then a humanitarian exemption, initially time-limited, was added to the counter-terrorism framework on 19 Feb 2024 (topic sheet on aid). File daten/eu_regime_ausnahmen_2023.csv.

The US was fastest. On 21 December 2022 the Treasury published general licences for aid organisations, farm goods, medicines and medical devices. According to the Federal Register they amended 29 parts of the sanctions regulations. The parts for Cuba (31 CFR part 515), Iran (560), North Korea (510), Syria (542) and Venezuela (591) are not among them; for Iran, Syria and Venezuela the Treasury refers to existing authorisations, for Cuba the conditions of the 2000 law with cash in advance and one-year licences continue to apply. The United Kingdom adopted the exemption for the UN regimes in February 2023; according to the IPI study it had no general exemption in its own regimes as of November 2024.

What changed on the ground

The International Peace Institute study of November 2024 collects examples. In Yemen an organisation had blocked payments released by explaining the exemption to the head of a bank’s compliance department. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo aid organisations can support health posts in areas held by the listed group M23, in northern Mali reach people in areas of the group JNIM. Donors showed more willingness to fund projects in areas of listed groups, reported for 24 projects in Sudan, Afghanistan and the Congo. On the first anniversary the Norwegian Refugee Council wrote that the resolution allowed it to help people “more efficiently, effectively, and safely”.

The same study shows the limit. After an initial 40 percent fall in bank enquiries, the Refugee Council later reported a 300 percent rise in de-risking. Why banks hesitate despite the exemption is explained in the article “Banks worldwide”.

What is missing

Sanctions of individual states. The resolution applies only to UN measures. Where the US, the EU or others impose their own sanctions, aid depends on whether these states follow suit voluntarily. The Norwegian Refugee Council therefore calls for harmonised humanitarian exemptions in all autonomous sanctions and counter-terrorism measures.

Criminal law against terrorism. Whether the exemption also covers national bans on terrorist financing and support is unsettled, according to a Harvard Law School study of March 2024; the Security Council has issued no public guidance on this. An example: when the US redesignated the Houthi movement Ansarallah as a foreign terrorist organisation in March 2025, the Treasury amended six general licences, including for farm goods and medicine. The 1996 criminal law against material support for such an organisation remains in place alongside.

Banks and donors. An exemption permits; it does not oblige. Banks decide by risk and profit, and some donors still require in their contracts that aid recipients be screened against lists, which aid organisations consider incompatible with their principles. In several countries groups of state, aid organisations and banks are therefore working on practical solutions, according to IPI in the United Kingdom, the US, France, Norway and the Netherlands; in Switzerland and Germany such groups were being set up in 2024.

Cuba: permitted with conditions, slowed on both sides

None of the new exemptions applies to Cuba; instead the US embargo applies with its own, older exemptions for food and medicine, tied to cash in advance or a bank in a third country. How these conditions work together is described in the article “Over-compliance”. After Hurricane Melissa, Cuba reportedly received 20 to 25 times less aid funding than Jamaica, according to information given to the UN Special Rapporteur; the source does not say how much of this is due to sanctions and how much to other reasons. On the other side, according to the authorities, private firms in Cuba were only allowed to import directly in 2026, and the government persecutes critics: Prisoners Defenders counted 1,351 political prisoners in September 2026.

Two perspectives

The case for caution

India and others warned that groups such as ISIL could divert aid; that is why the exemption for this regime was time-limited at first.

The lists remain: the exemption protects aid, not the listed parties. States keep the right to impose their own sanctions without exemptions.

The case for more exemptions

After two years aid organisations, states and UN experts reported no evidence of diversion; that was one reason for the indefinite extension.

Inconsistent rules create exactly the uncertainty that drives banks to withdraw. Uniform exemptions in all regimes would make screening simpler.

This piece is information, not legal, investment or health advice. It makes no diagnoses. It reflects the view of the editorial team, relies on the sources listed and names opposing positions. “Helfen statt Blockieren” is non-partisan.

Sources

All online sources accessed on 3 November 2026. Data files for checking: daten/ of this series.

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