OFAC renames Darfur Sanctions Regulations to Sudan Stabilization Sanctions Regulations, implements E.O. 14098

Mechanism

OFAC's Sudan sanctions authority traces back to Executive Order 13067 (November 1997), which declared a national emergency with respect to Sudan, and Executive Order 13400 (April 2006), which created the Darfur-specific sanctions program responding to the atrocities in the Darfur region. These authorities were codified at 31 CFR Part 546 as the Darfur Sanctions Regulations.

The October 2021 military coup in Sudan (SAC seizure of power) and the April 2023 outbreak of fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) created a significantly broader threat environment than the original Darfur frame contemplated. On May 4, 2023, President Biden issued Executive Order 14098 — "Imposing Sanctions on Certain Persons Destabilizing Sudan and Undermining the Goal of a Democratic Transition" — which expanded the sanctions perimeter to encompass persons responsible for actions threatening Sudan's peace, stability, and security, undermining democratic transition, committing human rights abuses, or obstructing humanitarian assistance anywhere in Sudan (not just Darfur).

The 5 March 2024 final rule operationalises E.O. 14098 by:

1. Renaming the regulatory part from "Darfur Sanctions Regulations" to "Sudan Stabilization Sanctions Regulations" — reflecting the broader geographic and political scope of the new EO. The CFR citation (31 CFR Part 546) is unchanged.

2. New general licenses (programmatic carve-outs): - GL 508 — Authorises payments for legal services from funds originating outside the United States, consistent with OFAC's post-2022 template for counsel-access carve-outs across new blocking perimeters. - GL 511 — Authorises transactions ordinarily incident to African Union (AU) operations in Sudan, preserving space for regional-body conflict-mediation activities. - GL 513 — Authorises exports and re-exports of agricultural commodities, medicine, medical devices, and water-related goods to blocked persons in Sudan; follows the OFAC standard humanitarian-trade carve-out applied across other country-specific sanctions programs (parallel to GL 3 under the Western Balkans Stabilization Regulations, filed 2024-03-07-us-ofac-wbsr-general-licenses-2-3-publication).

3. Interpretative provision (§ 546.412) — Clarifies that an entity is not automatically blocked solely because an SDN-listed individual holds a leadership position (e.g., director or executive officer); this tracks OFAC's 2019 "50 percent rule" guidance and prevents collateral over- blocking of entities with designated officers.

4. Updated definitions — New definitions for "foreign person" (§ 546.306), "OFAC clarification" (§ 546.310), and an updated "effective date" provision (§ 546.303) align the Sudan regulatory text with OFAC's modernised template terminology.

The rule was issued as a final rule without prior notice and comment, invoking the IEEPA foreign-affairs exception — standard practice for OFAC sanctions regulation updates.

Downstream implications

• Compliance-program scope expansion. Sanctions-compliance teams that

previously screened only against Darfur-specific SDN listings must now operate under the broader E.O. 14098 perimeter, which covers all Sudan-destabilising actors regardless of geographic origin within Sudan. The SAF and RSF both potentially fall within the EO's authority, though designations under E.O. 14098 had not yet been issued at the time of this regulatory publication.

• Humanitarian-operator relief. GL 513 is particularly significant for

NGOs and UN agencies running food, medical, and water programmes in Sudan given the scale of the 2023–24 humanitarian crisis (estimated 18 million people in acute food insecurity). The African Union GL 511 preserves AU-mediation-related fund flows.

• Legal-service access (GL 508). US law firms advising blocked Sudanese

entities or persons must receive fees from non-US-origin funds — a structural constraint on access to counsel that mirrors the pattern across Iran, Russia, Venezuela, and Cuba sanctions programs.

• E.O. 14098 designation pipeline. The regulatory framework published

here is the precondition for future SDN designations under E.O. 14098. The SAF–RSF conflict continued to escalate through 2024; further designations targeting conflict profiteers, arms suppliers, or humanitarian-access deniers are anticipated within this regulatory frame.

Open questions

• When OFAC will issue the first tranche of E.O. 14098 SDN designations,

and whether they will target SAF, RSF, or both command structures.

• Whether GL 513 will be revised to include fuel/energy (following the

pattern of later humanitarian GLs in other programs) given Sudan's acute fuel shortage.

• Whether the renamed Part 546 framework will eventually be split into

Darfur-specific and Sudan-wide sub-programs, or remain unified.