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Permitted, prohibited, disputed: what international law says about unilateral sanctions

· Helfen statt Blockieren editorial team

May a state or the EU block trade and payments with another state without a decision of the UN Security Council? The answer depends on whom you ask. This article sorts the three common readings, names who holds them, and shows what courts have decided so far and what remains open.

The undisputed route: the Security Council

The Charter of the United Nations has one procedure that is hardly contested. If the Security Council determines a threat to the peace (Article 39), it may decide on measures not involving armed force under Article 41, such as the complete or partial interruption of economic relations. Such decisions bind all members. The first binding economic sanctions of this kind hit Southern Rhodesia on 16 December 1966: Resolution 232 banned, among other things, imports of asbestos, chrome, sugar and tobacco and the supply of oil, adopted with 11 votes and 4 abstentions.

The route has a weakness everyone knows: each of the five permanent members can block it with a veto. How far the number of UN cases has fallen since 2015 is shown in the lead article “Who blocks whom”. Almost all sanctions debated today therefore rest not on a Security Council decision but on decisions of individual states or the EU.

Three readings for everything else

Tom Ruys, an international lawyer at Ghent University, calls enforcement through non-forcible measures one of the least developed areas of international law, full of controversies and grey areas. Three readings stand side by side.

First: retorsion. A state is not obliged to trade with another unless a treaty requires it. It may be unfriendly, for instance by stopping imports, cutting aid or cancelling visits, as long as it breaches no obligation of its own. The limit is set by treaties, in economic matters above all trade agreements and the rules of the World Trade Organization; the EU points to this in its statements too.

Second: countermeasure. In 2001 the UN International Law Commission presented articles on state responsibility. Under them, an injured state may temporarily suspend its own obligations towards a state that has broken the law in order to induce it to comply (Article 49). The measure must be commensurate with the injury suffered (Article 51). Article 50 draws hard limits: countermeasures may not affect the prohibition of force, obligations protecting fundamental human rights, or humanitarian obligations prohibiting reprisals. It is disputed whether states that are not themselves injured may act, for example in response to grave human rights violations in another country. Article 54 expressly leaves this open and speaks only of “lawful measures”. Ruys devotes a separate section to this dispute.

Third: prohibited coercion. Many states, above all from the Global South, regard unilateral economic sanctions as unlawful interference in internal affairs. On 26 September 2014 the UN Human Rights Council wrote in Resolution 27/21 that unilateral coercive measures are “contrary to international law” and created the post of a Special Rapporteur. The vote ended 31 in favour, 14 against and 2 abstentions; Germany voted no.

How states vote on unilateral coercive measures

Votes per resolution. Germany voted no in 2014 and in June 2025 and abstained in December 2025.

ResolutionYesNoAbstention
UN Human Rights Council, res. 27/21, 26 Sep 201431142
General Assembly, A/RES/79/293, 16 Jun 2025116516
General Assembly, A/RES/80/120, 15 Dec 20251271438

Sources: Right-Docs (res. 27/21), UN-Project (A/RES/79/293, A/RES/80/120), accessed 3 Nov 2026.

The division persists. On 16 June 2025 the General Assembly declared 4 December the International Day against Unilateral Coercive Measures, with 116 in favour, 51 against and 6 abstentions; all 27 EU states voted against. On 15 December 2025 it adopted Resolution 80/120 against economic coercion of developing countries with 127 in favour, 14 against and 38 abstentions; the United States voted no, Germany and France abstained. General Assembly resolutions are political declarations and do not bind states. They do show how many governments share a legal conviction.

Special Rapporteur Alena Douhan presented Guiding Principles on Sanctions, Business and Human Rights on 25 February 2025. In her own account they create no new law but apply existing law to sanctions and to over-compliance by banks and companies. Anyone citing her reports should add that Germany voted against the mandate in the Human Rights Council in 2014 and that the EU holds a different legal view.

The EU position: an open tension

On 7 June 2004 the Council of the EU set out basic principles on sanctions (doc. 10198/1/04 REV 1). The EU uses restrictive measures in full conformity with its obligations under international law (paragraph 3), targets them as precisely as possible and aims to reduce adverse humanitarian effects to the maximum extent possible (paragraph 6); they are to be lifted when their objectives are met (paragraph 9). In a statement to the General Assembly’s Second Committee on 21 November 2019, the EU called unilateral measures admissible, for example against terrorism, against the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction or to uphold human rights and democracy, as a last resort and in accordance with the Charter.

In 1996, however, the EU also adopted Blocking Regulation 2271/96. Its recitals state that the Helms-Burton Act and related US laws violate international law by their extraterritorial application. The EU thus distinguishes: its own sanctions apply to persons and firms in the EU and to business in the EU; foreign laws punishing firms in third countries it rejects. Critics consider the distinction thin, because EU sanctions also hit the target country’s economy and its trading partners. Supporters see it as the heart of the matter: a state may decide what its own citizens do, but not what citizens of other states do. How the regulation works is explained in “30 years of the Blocking Statute”.

What courts have decided and what not

International Court of Justice, 1986. In Nicaragua v. United States the Court also examined the US trade embargo of 1 May 1985. It did not regard it as a breach of the customary prohibition of intervention. By 12 votes to 3, however, it found that the embargo violated the two states’ Treaty of Friendship of 1956. The lesson: whether a sanction was permitted was decided by a treaty, not by a general prohibition.

International Court of Justice, 2018. On 3 October 2018 the Court unanimously and provisionally ordered the United States to remove impediments to the export to Iran of medicines, medical devices, foodstuffs, agricultural commodities and spare parts for civil aviation safety. The basis again was a treaty, the Treaty of Amity of 1955. The order applies pending the decision on the merits and does not rule on sanctions in general.

EU courts. They do not examine whether sanctions are permitted under international law, but whether the rights of those affected are respected. Since the Kadi judgment of 3 September 2008 this also applies when the EU implements a UN decision; more in “A name on the list”. On the Blocking Statute’s prohibition of compliance, the Court of Justice ruled in Bank Melli on 21 December 2021 that it applies but must be applied proportionately.

No international court has handed down a general judgment permitting or prohibiting unilateral economic sanctions as such.

Positions at a glance
ReadingCoreWho holds itReference
Retorsionunfriendly but lawful as long as no treaty is breachedprevailing doctrine for measures without treaty breachRuys 2017
Countermeasureunlawful in itself, permitted in response to a breach; limits in Arts. 50 and 51UN International Law Commission; disputed for states not themselves injuredILC Articles 2001, Arts. 49 to 54
Prohibited coercionunilateral coercive measures are contrary to international lawmajority in the Human Rights Council and the General Assembly; Special Rapporteurres. 27/21; A/RES/80/120
EU positionown measures consistent with international law; foreign ones with effect on third parties are notCouncil of the EUdoc. 10198/1/04; Reg. 2271/96

Compiled by Helfen statt Blockieren; sources below.

Cuba: two questions, answered separately

On 28 October 2026 the General Assembly called for the 34th time for an end to the US embargo on Cuba, with 130 in favour, 17 against and 25 abstentions; Germany abstained. The vote shows that most states reject the embargo, not that a court has declared it unlawful. International law answers a second question separately: in November 2024 the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found that two brothers have been arbitrarily detained since the protests of July 2021; Prisoners Defenders counted 1,351 political prisoners in September 2026. Whether a sanction is permitted does not depend on how the target state treats its citizens. And human rights violations are not justified by the fact that a country is under sanctions. Both halves are covered in “Cuba: human rights and political prisoners” and “Putting the UN vote in context”.

This article is information, not legal advice. It relies on the sources listed; where experts disagree, it names the positions and who holds them. “Helfen statt Blockieren” is non-partisan.

Sources

All online sources accessed on 3 November 2026.

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