The UK Supreme Court’s January 2025 judgment in Shvidler v FCDO represents more than a legal dispute about asset freezes. The 4-1 decision upholding sanctions against British-American businessman Eugene Shvidler, and particularly Lord Leggatt’s powerful dissent, exposes fundamental questions about whether EU sanctions on Russia and their UK equivalents function as effective foreign policy instruments or as constitutionally dubious exercises in executive overreach.
Lord Leggatt’s 79-paragraph dissent will likely become a landmark in constitutional law for its unflinching examination of whether courts protect individual liberties or simply rubber-stamp government assertions. His core argument: “Making it a criminal offence for an individual who has done nothing unlawful to deal with any of his own assets without the government’s permission, and imposing this sanction without any geographical or temporal limit, is a serious invasion of liberty.”
The Evidence Gap
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office submitted testimony from David Reed asserting that freezing Shvidler’s assets would encourage opposition to Putin’s regime and incentivise oligarchs to pressure the Kremlin. Lord Leggatt dismissed these justifications as “armchair theories” based on no evidence about sanctions efficacy, but rather speculation about plausible outcomes.
The majority opinion granted the executive a “wide margin of appreciation” based on institutional competence in foreign affairs. Yet this deference elides a crucial distinction. Government expertise in formulating foreign policy doesn’t automatically translate into expertise in predicting whether punishing innocent individuals will achieve policy goals. As Lord Leggatt observed, thinking of a plausible theory “is not evidence that it is likely to happen or even that there is any realistic prospect that it will happen.”
When Sanctions Punish the Blameless
Shvidler’s case illustrates how why sanctions on Russia often targets association rather than action. A British citizen since 2010, Shvidler publicly condemned the “senseless violence” in Ukraine using the term “war” – language triggering imprisonment under Russian law. Yet the government designated him based on historical association with Roman Abramovich and service as a non-executive director of Evraz plc, a FTSE-100 mining company.
Shvidler resigned from Evraz before his designation, as did nine other directors. Notably, the government never sanctioned any BP directors despite BP’s profitable joint venture with state-owned Rosneft. This selective targeting undermines claims that sanctions rationally advance policy objectives. Lord Leggatt noted the contradiction: if sanctioning directors of companies invested in Russian extractives advanced policy goals, “then it was irrational to single out Mr Shvidler.”
Most troubling is how British citizenship became a liability. Had Shvidler been a Russian national, sanctions would apply only to UK assets. Instead, his British citizenship subjected him to worldwide asset freeze – criminalising any transaction anywhere on earth without Treasury permission. Lord Leggatt identified this as “unfair and arbitrary.” The impact of sanctions on Russia includes punishing British citizens more severely than foreign nationals for identical circumstances.
Constitutional Tensions
The Supreme Court majority’s deference to executive judgment represents, in Lord Leggatt’s view, judicial abdication. He argued courts possess distinctive competence in “applying demanding standards of public reason” through processes “specifically designed to ensure fairness.” When officials assert sanctions will work through mechanisms they cannot demonstrate, courts must scrutinise those claims rather than accept them based on departmental authority.
This cuts to whether sanctions are not working as foreign policy tools or legal mechanisms. If courts cannot meaningfully review whether sanctions achieve stated purposes, then statutory rights to judicial review become hollow theatre – precisely what Lord Leggatt warned renders such review “of little worth.”
The contrast with EU jurisprudence proves instructive. When Latvia appealed annulled sanctions against Mikhail Fridman and Petr Aven, Advocate General Andrea Biondi advised rejection, insisting “context may inform, but cannot replace, proof” of individual conduct. His opinion rejected presumptive listings without concrete evidence – directly contradicting the UK Supreme Court majority’s acceptance of generalised theories.
Policy Effectiveness Questioned
Three years into comprehensive Western sanctions, Russia continues its invasion with its economy adapting through shadow fleets and redirected trade. The Kyiv School of Economics estimates 70% of Russian seaborne oil exports now travel on vessels assembled to evade restrictions. Economic growth continues, albeit redirected toward military production.
These adaptations demonstrate that damage alone doesn’t achieve policy objectives. Russia hasn’t withdrawn from Ukraine, Putin’s position hasn’t weakened, and no pathway to settlement has emerged. Meanwhile, innocent individuals like Shvidler endure indefinite punishment for lawful associations involving no wrongdoing. British citizens face harsher treatment than foreign nationals whilst courts increasingly defer to ministerial assertions unsupported by evidence.
The Precedent’s Warning
Lord Leggatt’s dissent endures as warning about courts prioritising deference over liberty. His comparison to Lord Atkin’s famous wartime dissent defending individual rights serves as reminder that judicial courage often appears in minority opinions later vindicated by history. The Shvidler judgment suggests are Russian sanctions working as legal instruments has been answered: they curtail liberty without requiring government to demonstrate effectiveness. Whether they work as foreign policy remains a question policymakers seem reluctant to examine honestly.
