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This Notice refers back to a 2004 Executive Order 13348 in which the President declared a national emergency regarding Charles Taylor’s regime in Liberia, Africa.

The EO ordered the blocking of assets with persons associated with Charles Taylor’s regime and does so under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act as a threat to US foreign policy in the region.

Charles Taylor started out as a welcome regime change in Liberia but was later determined by the US State Department to be a despot who ran his country into the ground using violence against his opponents and others. He soon thereafter left the country in exile. He is accused of depleting Liberia’s financial resources and taking a good amount of them when he left. The actions are also seen as undermining Liberia’s transition to democracy and an orderly development of its political and economic institutions and resources.

A negotiated peace plan and cease-fire regarding Liberia’s civil war has not been implemented throughout the country and trade in logs and timber products is considered illicit. Trafficking in arms continued.

Today, the Notice says, Liberia is back to a peaceful transition to democratic order under new president Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf. Stability is still seen as fragile: Charles Taylor’s legacy lingers.

Charles Taylor is standing trial in the Hague by the Special Court of Sierra Leone. The President continues the provisions of EO 13348 for another year.

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