The United Nations Sanctions Policy and International Law

Abstract

The United Nations Sanctions Policy and International Law

Abstract

Article 41 of the United Nations Charter provides for economic and
other kinds of non-military measures for maintaining or restoring
international peace and security, without using the term sanctions to
designate such measures.1
These coercive measures bind ali member states.2
They are listed in connection with the maintenance of peace in Chapter VII of
the Charter3
and have become familiar to a broad public in the wake of the
1991 Gulf War.4
The use of economic coercion is a prior step to military force as provided for in articles 42 et seq.5

Interestingly, the Charter grants
the Security Council a şort of monopoly över definitions in this field; the
Security Council decides on its own whether a threat to peace, a breach of
peace, or an act of aggression exists.
It remains undisputed that sanctions are permitted by law as specifîc
countermeasures to violations of international law and that, in the event of
such a violation, contractual obligations to the "law-breaking" state which
otherwise apply are invalidated. The problematic nature of this issue has
been thoroughly treated by the International Law Commission of the United
Nations under the heading "Legitimate application of a sanction".6
In Article
30 of the "Draft articles on State responsibility" (1979), the Commission
recommended a formulation of this normative priority of sanctions in
international law; the revised title of this article reads "Countermeasures in

respect of an internationally wrongful act" 

Keywords

• The United
• Nations Sanction
• International Law