Economic sanctions

Economic sanctions - economic measures of a restrictive nature, which are applied by a state or a group of states to another country. Sanctions may take the form of a total or partial ban on exports and imports of products, as well as the introduction of restrictions on financial transactions, including cross-border payments and investments.

 

A number of multilateral mechanisms for the international community to impose sanctions against individual states, based on UN decisions, have now been developed.

The purpose of economic sanctions is to force a state government to change its policies. This can have different levels of significance: from changing decisions on individual agreements, to radical changes in the state structure. It can also include accession to a certain international treaty, the withdrawal of troops from occupied territories, an end to human rights violations, transparent electoral campaigns, and an end to all support for international terrorism.

There is no precise definition of economic sanctions in international law; each case is treated separately. There is also no definition of sanctions in the UN Charter, but there is mention of complete or partial severance of economic relations, various means of communication, which corresponds to generally accepted notions of sanctions.

Economic sanctions can be imposed unilaterally by a decision of a country's president, government, or parliament. Sanctions can also be imposed by a group of states. However, only sanctions adopted by the UN Security Council have official international status - they are binding on all UN member states.