nationalsecuritylaw Treasury Amends OFAC rules to permit payments for certain legal services

* Treasury Amends OFAC Rules to Permit Payments for Certain Legal Services

(hat tip: Charlie Dunlap)

This is interesting – OFAC has issued a final rule amending the TSR and GTSR sanction regimes to expand the options for designated entities to pay for certain legal services. Presumably this is at least indirectly responsive to issues that arose over the past year when the ACLU and CCR sought to represent Anwar al-Aulaqi’s father in the targeted killing case, and when the Humanitarian Law Project litigation (which dealt with the 2339B material support regime, not an IEEPA regime) raised similar questions about the provision of legal services to designated terrorist organizations. Whatever the origin, the full details are posted here, and the summary follows:

SUMMARY: The Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) of the U.S.

Department of the Treasury is amending the Global Terrorism Sanctions

Regulations (“GTSR”) and the Terrorism Sanctions Regulations

(“TSR”) to expand the scope of authorizations in each of those

programs for the provision of certain legal services. In addition, OFAC

is adding new general licenses under the GTSR, the TSR, and the Foreign

Terrorist Organizations Sanctions Regulations to authorize U.S. persons

to receive specified types of payment for certain authorized legal

services.

DATES: Effective Date: December 7, 2010.

(click the link above for the full text)

By Robert M. Chesney

Robert M. Chesney is Charles I. Francis Professor in Law at UT-Austin School of Law. Chesney is a national security law specialist, with a particular interest in problems associated with terrorism. Professor Chesney recently served in the Justice Department in connection with the Detainee Policy Task Force created by Executive Order 13493. He is a member of the Advisory Committee of the American Bar Association's Standing Committee on Law and National Security, a senior editor for the Journal of National Security Law & Policy, an associate member of the Intelligence Science Board, a non-resident senior fellow of the Brookings Institution, a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a member of the American Law Institute. Professor Chesney has published extensively on topics ranging from detention and prosecution in the counterterrorism context to the states secrets privilege. He served previously as chair of the Section on National Security Law of the Association of American Law Schools and as editor of the National Security Law Report (published by the American Bar Association's Standing Committee on Law and National Security). His upcoming projects include two books under contract with Oxford University Press, one concerning the evolution of detention law and policy and the other examining the judicial role in national security affairs.

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