CYIL vol. 7 (2016)

ZUZANA TRÁVNÍČKOVÁ

CYIL 7 ȍ2016Ȏ

Introduction

For a long time (since the practice of international sanctions has blossomed out

from the beginning of the 1990’s), international relations scholars controlled the study

of international sanctions. They were studying individual sanction episodes, they have

structured and classified sanctions measures, and they were trying to identify overall

trends in the practice on the national as well as international level. International law

scholars were only carefully looking at particular aspects of sanctions, especially the

topic of judicial and quasi-judicial review of listing of individuals and entities attracted

intensive attention.

That is why we should very much appreciate one of first overall

works devoted to the relation between sanctions and international law: a collective

monograph Economic Sanctions under International Law edited by Ali Z. Marossi

and Marisa R. Bassett and issued by Springer in 2015. In 13 essays the authors deal

with different aspects of imposing and implementation of multilateral and unilateral

sanctions. In Chapter 4, called “Unilateral sanctions: a Quest for legality”, Rahmat

Mohamad concludes, that unilateral (economic) sanctions violate many principles

of international law and thus they are impermissible under international law.

Such

sharp and definite conclusions are quite rare in the international law research; let us

look closer at his text and discuss it.

The aim of this contribution is to outline Prof. Mohamad’s line of reasoning,

to consider his arguments and to assess his conclusions in the light of counter-

arguments and wider context. Although the following contribution is going to

approach Prof. Mohamad’s work quite critically, I would like to emphasize that

I am very grateful that his text was published; as was already mentioned above, the

international sanctions academic debate has for a long time been dominated by

views presented by international relations and international politics optics. That

is why every contribution of international law scholars to the debate should be

welcomed. By its unambiguous findings the discussed text bears a strong potential

to provoke other authors to react and develop the ideas presented and support the

very needful debate on different aspects of the use of international sanctions and

maintain the conceptualization of the topic.

The research design of Prof. Mohamad’s text “Unilateral sanctions: a Quest

for legality” is not defined expressly; however, it is not impossible to identify it:

only those measures mentioned in UN Charter are legal (= permissible); unilateral

See e.g. KOKOTT, J. and SOBOTTA, CH. ‘The Kadi case–constitutional core values and international

law-finding the balance?’ (2012) 23.4

EJIL

1015; P MARGULIES, ‘Aftermath of an Unwise Decision:

The UN Terrorist Sanctions Regime After Kadi II.’ (2014) 6 Amsterdam LF 51; E DE WET, ‘From

Kadi to Nada: judicial techniques favouring human rights over United Nations Security Council

sanctions’ (2013) 12.4

Chinese Journal of International Law,

787.

MOHAMAD, R.‘Unilateral Sanctions in International Law: A Quest for Legality’ in AZ Marossi

and MR Bassett (eds),

Economic Sanctions Under International Law: Unilateralism, Multilateralism,

Legitimacy, and Consequences

(Springer, The Hague, 2015) 80.