Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act

The Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986 was a United States law that imposed sanctions on South Africa in response to its policy of apartheid. Apartheid was a system of institutionalized racial segregation and discrimination enforced by the white minority government against the nonwhite majority.

The Act banned new investments and loans to South Africa, ended air links, and prohibited the import of many South African commodities. This was part of a broader international effort to pressure the South African government to dismantle apartheid. The law was passed over a presidential veto, indicating significant congressional support for strong action against the apartheid regime. The repeal of apartheid legislation in South Africa in the early 1990s, coupled with the country's first multiracial elections in 1994, marked the end of legislated apartheid, though its social and economic effects persisted.12