Carriage of certain goods destined for a prohibited destination

Q: Is article 7(3) of The United Nations Arms Embargoes (Liberia, Somalia and the Former Yugoslavia) Order 1993 a strict liability offence?

The prosecution must prove that the conduct happened. This is a strict liability offence as drafted: the provision uses no word of intention, knowledge, recklessness or negligence, so there is no need to show that an owner meant to do it, knew about it, or was careless.

article 7(3) of The United Nations Arms Embargoes (Liberia, Somalia and the Former Yugoslavia) Order 1993

Revoked
Strict liability
Either way
International sanctions, export control and trade restrictions

The provision has been revoked and no saving provision preserving liability for earlier conduct was found.

What the provision says

3 If any ship, aircraft or vehicle is used in contravention of paragraph (1) of this article, then:
a in the case of
a ship registered in the United Kingdom or any aircraft so registered, the owner and the master of the ship or, as the case may be, the operator and the commander of the aircraft; or
b in the case of any other ship or aircraft, the person to whom the ship or aircraft is for the time being chartered and, if he is such
a person as is referred to in sub-paragraph (a) or sub-paragraph (b) of paragraph (2) of this article, the master of the ship or, as the case may be, the operator and the commander of the aircraft; or
c in the case of
a vehicle, the operator of the vehicle, shall be guilty of an offence unless he proves that he did not know and had no reason to suppose that the carriage of the goods in question was, or formed part of, carriage from any place outside
a prohibited destination to any place therein or to, or to the order of, any person connected with
a prohibited destination.

Text as made, from legislation.gov.uk. © Crown copyright, reused under the Open Government Licence v3.0. This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.

Who it binds, and what has to be proved

Binds: an owner
Conduct: contravening a requirement of the instrument
Fault element: Strict liability
Burden of proof: Legal burden on the defendant

The prosecution must prove that the conduct happened. This is a strict liability offence as drafted: the provision uses no word of intention, knowledge, recklessness or negligence, so there is no need to show that an owner meant to do it, knew about it, or was careless.

Intention, knowledge and carelessness are irrelevant to guilt. They may still matter a great deal to sentence.

The provision gives a defence the defendant must prove, on the balance of probabilities. A legal burden of that kind can be read down to a merely evidential one under section 3 of the Human Rights Act 1998 where placing it on the defendant would be disproportionate (R v Lambert [2001] UKHL 37; Sheldrake v DPP [2004] UKHL 43).

Classifier’s reasoning: no word of intention, knowledge, recklessness or negligence in the offence or its provision; other provisions of the same instrument use a mens rea word while this one does not (the Cundy v Le Cocq contrast).

The defence, as drafted

the operator of the vehicle, shall be guilty of an offence unless he proves that he did not know and had no reason to suppose that the carriage of the goods in question was, or formed part of, carriage from any place outside a prohibited destination to any place therein or to, or to the order of, any person connected with a prohibite

What would breach article 7(3)?

These are illustrations, not law. They are generated from the provision’s own words to show the shape of the offence. Whether any particular conduct is caught depends on the full text, on any amendment since, and on the facts.

Doing the thing the provision prohibits under the United Nations Arms Embargoes (Liberia, Somalia and the Former Yugoslavia) Order 1993, whatever the reason for doing it.
Where the requirement is a positive duty, letting the time for performing it pass without performing it.

Penalty

Mode of trial: Either way — magistrates’ court or Crown Court
Maximum fine: £5,000
Standard scale: Level 5
Maximum prison (summary): 6 months
Maximum prison (on indictment): 2 years

this is the level 5 value when the instrument came into force (1993-07-22); the standard scale is keyed to the date the offence was committed, and for conduct today the same words mean an unlimited fine.

Sentencing

Offences of this kind are usually sentenced under the guidelines below. This is a mapping by subject, not a finding about this provision, and the links go to a search of the Sentencing Council’s own site.

Sentencing organisations: fines and the means of a corporate defendant All courts in England and Wales
How a fine on a company is arrived at from its turnover. Relevant far beyond the guidelines that state it, because a very large share of the offences in this corpus can only be committed by an organisation.
Fraud, bribery and money laundering offences: definitive guideline Magistrates' courts and the Crown Court in England and Wales · in force from 1 October 2014
Covers fraud, false accounting, bribery and money laundering, including offences committed by organisations.
Imposition of community and custodial sentences: definitive guideline All courts in England and Wales
When a community order or custody is justified at all, and the presumption against short custodial sentences.
Reduction in sentence for a guilty plea: definitive guideline All courts in England and Wales · in force from 1 June 2017
The sliding scale of credit for pleading guilty, from one third at the first stage of proceedings downwards.
General guideline: overarching principles All courts in England and Wales · in force from 1 October 2019
The guideline a court uses when there is no offence-specific guideline, which is the position for the overwhelming majority of offences created by statutory instrument. It sets out how culpability and harm are assessed from first principles.
Totality: definitive guideline All courts in England and Wales
How to sentence more than one offence at once so that the total is just and proportionate - frequently in point here, because regulatory prosecutions commonly charge several breaches of the same instrument.

Prosecution figures

No published per-offence figure was found for this provision, and it could not be matched to a Ministry of Justice offence code. Offences created by statutory instrument very largely do not have one. Absence of a figure is not evidence that the offence is unused.

Status and lifecycle

Current status: Revoked
Revoked by: The Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 (Powers of Arrest) (Consequential Amendments) Order 2005
Revoked on: 1 January 2006
Made: 20 July 1993
In force from: 22 July 1993
Extent: E+W+S+NI

How this was established: the instrument was revoked by a later instrument found in this corpus.

What the instrument is for

This Order, made under the United Nations Act 1946, imposes restrictions pursuantto decisions of the Security Council of the United Nations in Resolution No. 713 of25th September 1991 which provided for States to “implement a general and complete embargo on all deliveries of weapons and military equipment” to the former Yugoslavia, and in Resolution No. 733 of 23rd January 1992 and Resolution No. 788 of 19th November 1992, which made similar provision in relation to Somalia and Liberia, respectively.

Read the full note and every offence in this instrument

Other offences in the same instrument

Deliveries and Supplies of certain goods to a prohibited destinationarticle 3(3)
Customs powers to demand evidence of destination which goods reacharticle 5(1)
Customs powers to demand evidence of destination which goods reacharticle 5(2)
Declaration as to goods: powers of searcharticle 6(2)
Declaration as to goods: powers of searcharticle 6(3)
Investigation, etc. of suspected ships, aircraft and vehiclesarticle 8(10)
Any person who— a without reasonable excuse, refuses or fails within the time and in the manner specified…paragraph 5(1) of SCHEDULE

How this was identified as an offence

Everything above rests on the judgement that this provision creates a criminal offence, rather than mentioning one. That judgement is made by rule, from the words of the provision, and this is the rule that made it — with a confidence of 0.92.

Basis: the provision says a person is “guilty of an offence”
Confidence: 0.92 of 1.00

A provision that states a penalty for an offence created elsewhere can read very like one that creates an offence, and the rules can mistake the one for the other. If the text quoted above sets a penalty for something made an offence by another provision, treat the classification on this page with that in mind, and read the instrument.

Check the source

This provision on legislation.gov.uk The authoritative text. Check it before relying on anything here.
The United Nations Arms Embargoes (Liberia, Somalia and the Former Yugoslavia) Order 1993 Every offence this instrument creates, and its explanatory note
International sanctions, export control and trade restrictionsOther offences on the same subject
Offences created in 1993