Litigating Economic Sanctions

This article focuses on the legality of unilateral economic sanctions that consist in the non-performance of obligations in the field of economic relations under relevant applicable treaties, and on the role that international adjudicative bodies can play in drawing a line between legal and illegal economic sanctions. It revisits the scarce relevant litigation before the ICJ and the WTO, pinpointing the grey areas in the law applicable to economic sanctions, on which further clarification is needed. The article argues that international adjudication can play a crucial role in such process of clarification, not only by elucidating the relevant legal regime, but also by triggering State reactions, which in turn can prompt legal developments in this area. Once the “rule-ness” of the relevant legal regime is firmly established, the need for court “supervision” will decrease, thus making it possible to envisage a fair system of international law enforcement without international courts.