Economic Sanctions in International Law and A Short Evaluation of the Us’ Unilateral Sanctions
Galip Engin ŞimşekThe purpose of this article is to analyse the international legality and the effectiveness of economic sanctioning policies, adopted by states to force each other to behave in a certain way in areas of conflict. In this regard, first of all, research directed towards discovering if a rule exists prohibiting economic sanction is undertaken, and then relevant international rules that need to be conformed in applying these policies are elaborated. Another issue addressed in this article is the probability of success, namely, effectiveness, of these sanctioning policies. In this context, economic and social inter and intra state dynamics, which either strengthen or weaken the effectiveness of these policies, are closely examined. Finally, the article scrutinises, from the perspective of international law, the problems arising from the US’ laws having extraterritorial effects and prescribing sanctions for foreign entities.
Uluslararası Hukuk Açısından Ekonomik Yaptırımlar ve ABD’nin Tek Taraflı Yaptırımlarının Kısa Bir Değerlendirilmesi
Galip Engin ŞimşekBu makalede devletlerin aralarında çıkan belli uyuşmazlık alanlarında birbirlerini belli şekilde davranmaya zorlamak üzere uygulamaya koydukları ekonomik yaptırım politikalarının uluslararası hukuka uygunluğu ve etkinliği meselesi ele alınmaktadır. Bu amaçla öncelikle söz konusu yaptırım politikalarının uygulanmasını yasaklayan bir uluslararası hukuk kuralının mevcut olup olmadığına yönelik bir araştırma yapılmakta ve ardından bu tür yaptırım politikalarının uygulanması sırasında uyulması gereken ilgili uluslararası kurallar incelenmektedir. Makalede ele alınan diğer bir mesele devletlerin birbirlerine baskı kurmak üzere başvurdukları söz konusu politikaların istenen sonucu sağlayıp sağlamadığı, başka bir ifade ile etkinliği konusudur. Bu çerçevede bu tür politikaların etkinliğini arttıran veya azaltan devlet içi ve devletlerarası ekonomik ve sosyal dinamikler analiz edilmektedir. Makalede son olarak ekonomik yaptırım politikalarının özel bir türü olan ve genellikle ABD tarafından sıklıkla kullanılan belli devletlere, örgütlere ve kişilere yönelik yaptırımlar öngören ülke aşıcı etkili kanuni düzenlemelerin uluslararası hukuka uygunluğu sorunu ele alınmaktadır.
In this article, the unilateral economic sanctions of states are analysed from the perspective of the terms of their legality in international law and their effectiveness as a political tool. As a method of analysis, in case of their legality, the states’ and scholars’ arguments for justifying this kind of practices and how others responded or rejected these are looked at. The soundness of these pro/counter arguments according to the relevant concepts and rules framing and regulating states’ behaviours in international law are then checked to see if and when unilateral sanctions would be considered legal. In case of their effectiveness, the political economy literature on sanctions are evaluated in order to discover states’ motivations to resort to these and internal or external political, social and economic factors affecting the success of sanctions. The main conclusions of the article can be summarised as follows.
First of all, it seems that there is no specific rule in international law that prohibits states from resorting to unilateral economic sanctions. Yet, it is necessary to take into account the principles of necessity and proportionality (including the clause in the commentary to draft article 18 on state responsibility that qualifies serious economic pressure, which deprives the target state of any possibility of conforming with its obligations, as coercion), as well as some basic rules of humanitarian and human rights law in evaluating the legality of the content and effects of sanctions. On the other hand, in cases of violations of these limits on sanctions, it would be preferable to claim the responsibility based on the duty of care since providing the necessary proof in terms of attribution of responsibility for specific damages in the target state according to the strict criteria of control is very difficult. Furthermore, if economic sanctions are applied in the form of smart sanctions, responsibility might arise in terms of the sanctioning state’s human rights obligations towards targeted individuals.
Another issue analysed in this article is the possibility of qualifying economic sanctions as a form of countermeasures in the law of state responsibility. In this regard, as the special rapporteur of the UN Human Rights Council pointed out in his report on the legality of unilateral sanctions, the determining criteria are the legitimacy of the ground and the conformity with procedural and material conditions for applying these kind of measures. One of the most disputed questions in the area of unilateral sanctions is whether or not these are in any way prohibited by the principle of non-intervention. It is concluded that currently such a prohibition in this regard has de lege ferenda status. The reasoning behind this conclusion is the fact that necessary state practice and opinio juris do not seem to be widespread and uniform enough to claim the existence of such a prohibiting rule.
As regards the problem effectiveness of sanctions, sample analyses and theoretical evaluations on this issue prove the complexity of the factors and the difficulty of deciding the best form of sanctioning strategy. Nevertheless, if our perspective on international law is to use it as a tool for international cooperation for non-zero sum game and, if states resort to economic sanctions for maximising unilateral gains, this would be contrary to the idea of increasing global wealth through such cooperation.
Finally, in the last section of the article I analyse an unusual example of sanctioning foreign entities by enacting domestic laws having extraterritorial effects, practiced by the US as a form of foreign policy. The way these laws use the limited categories of international law for extraterritorial effect and rather arbitrary application of such powers by the administration show the inappropriateness of such practice in international law, as could also be clearly inferred from the number of protests by other states and international organisations.
