Secondary sanctions and the extraterritorial effects of sanctions

Felipe Rodríguez Silvestre

Chapter 67 in Elgar Encyclopedia of International Sanctions, 2025, pp 230-233 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: The sanctions landscape has undergone a profound transformation since the 1990s. Following the end of the Cold War, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) actively employed sanctions as a tool for collective security. However, the past two decades have marked a discernible shift, with states and regional organizations increasingly favouring unilateral sanctions over multilateral measures. This shift reflects a geopolitical climate shaped by the weaponization of economic interdependence and a deeper inquiry into the effectiveness and limitations of multilateralism as a governance framework. In this context, sanctions with an extraterritorial reach have emerged as a key feature of this era, with secondary sanctions serving as the most controversial and expansive example of this trend. Secondary sanctions, a tool predominantly employed by powerful states, target economic or financial transactions between third states or their entities and a sanctioned target. These measures raise serious concerns regarding their conformity with international law. By imposing obligations on foreign entities, secondary sanctions extend the jurisdictional reach of the sanctioning state, potentially contravening the principles of sovereign equality, non-intervention, and the rules governing the exercise of jurisdiction by states. This entry examines the contentious extraterritorial characteristics and effects of secondary sanctions under international law.

Keywords: Extraterritorial jurisdiction; Secondary sanctions; Primary sanctions; Unilateral sanctions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781035339525
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.elgaronline.com/doi/10.4337/9781035339532.00078 (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 403 Forbidden

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:elg:eechap:23591_68

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.e-elgar.com

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Chapters from Edward Elgar Publishing
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Jack Sweeney ().