On 28 September 2021, the US Congress passed the Libya Stabilization Act. This Bill authorizes the United States’ support for efforts to strengthen good governance, including by providing assistance to unify Libya’s financial and governing institutions as well as ensuring free and credible future elections in Libya.
More importantly, this Bill provides for sanctions and aid related to the conflict in Libya; by providing statutory authority for an executive order dated 19 April 2016 imposing property and visa blocking sanctions on persons contributing to the violence in Libya. The act highlights that : “The President must impose property- and visa-blocking sanctions on any foreign person that (1) knowingly supports or engages in a significant transaction with a foreign person knowingly operating in Libya on behalf of Russia in a military capacity, (2) engages in significant actions threatening peace or stability in Libya, (3) misappropriates Libyan state assets or natural resources, or (4) is knowingly responsible for or complicit in serious human rights abuses in Libya. These sanctions shall expire on December 31, 2026”.
The Bill will now need to go through the US Senate and obtain approval by the President for it to become law and be enforceable by the US government.
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