The Notion of “Sanctions” and “Countermeasures” in International Law

The issue of “sanctions” applied by states and some international organizations (mainly the EU), which are not directly harmed entities, is one of the most complex issues in the theory and practice of contemporary international law, not just because of their frequency and scope in the last two decades. It came into the spotlight again due to the very extensive and gradually supplemented restrictive measures taken by the EU against Russia, firstly after the annexation of Crimea in 2014, but mainly in response to the aggression against Ukraine from February 2022. These coercive measures are not Security Council sanctions under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, but individual measures of some states and the EU (which has no more rights in this regard than the states themselves). Therefore, the legality of the measures of the EU, the US, and some other states must be assessed according to their content and on the basis of international law. Some of the measures are not legally prohibited by their content (retorsion) or their legality can be established on treaty-based exceptions and clauses on the protection of security interests. For others, we can find their justification based on the rules of general international law, as a countermeasure. This institute is the modern equivalent of traditional peaceful reprisals, the current regulation of which can be found in the Articles on State Responsibility (ARSIWA) adopted by the International Law Commission.