Extraterritorial sanctions in response to global security challenges: countermeasures as gap-fillers in the United Nations collective security system

Abstract

This article challenges the common understanding according to which unilateral and extraterritorial sanctions are a threat to the international legal order. It shows that sanctions of this kind may have a role to play as responses to challenges to global security, particularly when the centralised action by the United Nations (UN) encounters limitations. The article considers two examples of extraterritorial sanctions that may be lawful in this sense: those expanding on the territorial scope of restrictive measures decided by the UN Security Council, and those mapping on certain measures recommended by the UN General Assembly. In these circumstances, countermeasures may provide the legal basis to support otherwise unlawful unilateral and even extraterritorial measures, provided that certain conditions are met. The article shows that such measures act as gap-fillers to ensure the widest possible compliance with communitarian norms and may ultimately strengthen the international rule of law.