The latest round of UN designations issued on March 30 took aim at a swathe of companies and vessels engaged in evading sectoral sanctions covering the DPRK, though also highlighted the increasingly complex nature of the sanctions regime.

The newest measures targeted 27 ships – nearly doubling the total number on the UN’s blacklist – though for the first time added them to three separate categories, each deriving their authority from a different combination of UN resolutions and requiring different obligations of enforcement agencies.

While the action is no doubt a strong signal to local opportunists looking to