Economic Sanctions Under International Law: A Guide for Canadian Policy

The primary focus of the report is the lawfulness of economic sanctions under international law—for while there are many imperatives to contemplate in assessing policy options, the lawfulness of the tools being deployed as part of that policy is, or should be, of considerable importance. [...] But the idea that they could serve as an alternative to the use of force really began to emerge with the development of the Covenant of the League of Nations. [...] During the negotiations of the text of the Charter, Latin American countries proposed that the prohibition on the use of force should be understood to encompass economic and financial coercion, but this was explicitly rejected by the majority of states present.12 The meaning of the prohibition on the use of force in Article 2(4) of the Charter was thus limited to the use of armed force. [...] system are quite significant to the evolution of economic sanctions: first, because the prohibition on the use of force meant that states needed to find alternate measures to pressure and modify the behavior of other states; and second, because the principle of non-intervention raised questions as to whether some economic sanctions might rise to the level of constituting a prohibited coercive inte. [...] With a sanctions regime established by Security Council Resolution 1267, the assets and financial transactions of the Taliban were specifically targeted, and the regime was extended to target the finances of Osama bin Laden himself, and all those “associated with him,” in 2000.30 This was the beginning of the individual designation system, and the development of “smart sanctions” that sought to ta.