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. 1 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. 2 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 1 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. 2 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.

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