UN Security Council Sanctions and International Peace and Security: Context, Controversies and (Legal) Challenges

Abstract

AbstractThe focus of this chapter is UN Security Council sanctions; that is, coercive measures short of the use of military force taken under Article 41 of the UN Charter. Since the late 1990s, the Council has undergone a seismic shift in its sanctioning practice, from imposing blanket sanctions against states towards targeting individuals apparently implicated in global terrorism. As a result of this shift, this area of the Security Council’s practice has, in recent times, courted a high degree of controversy. Criticisms centre on the lack of due process guarantees provided to those targeted, which culminated in the now notorious Kadi litigation before the courts of the European Union, and other high-profile decisions of regional and domestic courts. This chapter situates these developments, first in light of the Council’s ‘primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security’ and, secondly, in the context of a broader conversation on the legality and legitimacy of Security Council decision-making under Chapter VII.KeywordsSecurity CouncilArticle 41SanctionsLegal limitsLegitimisation Kadi