Economic Sanctions against Russia: Questions of Legality and Legitimacy

Despite the apparent aggression by Russia against Ukraine, the legality of the autonomous (‘non-UN’) economic sanctions against Russia remains uncertain. Measures adopted as sanctions are generally assumed to be lawful by those states imposing such sanctions. The same sanctions are denounced as illegal by Russia and also by a number of other states. The question of legitimacy of these sanctions is also divisive. As the main criticism of these sanctions pertains to their ‘unilateral’ nature, an initial response to such criticism is to attempt to present sanctions as actually being collective UN sanctions. However, assimilating autonomous economic sanctions to collective sanctions under UN auspices is an untenable argument. Another justification proposed is labelling the sanctions as so-called ‘third-party countermeasures.’ However, the debate on the entitlement of third states to take countermeasures remains inconclusive. Moreover, there is no evidence that states imposing sanctions against Russia rely on such legal justification.