Source: Hong Kong Ming Pao
Author: Ye Junran
"Sanctions" has become a common word today in international news.On the one hand, we see that the United States has greatly increased the use of sanctions since the era of Trump's ruling until the Russia -Ukraine War; on the other hand, China, including the US sanctions, has vigorously condemned US unilateral sanctions against international law.International bullying behavior.There are many cases of Chinese Foreign Ministry reporters in response to sanctions, and readers must be familiar with it.However, these reports have not clearly explained the international law behind the sanctions and the basic principles of international relations, so that everyone is like fog and flowers on this issue, and failed to thoroughly interpret sanctions news and understanding international relations.
First of all, sanctions can be divided into multilateral and unilateral.Multilateral sanctions refer to sanctions issued by the United Nations Security Council; on the contrary, unilateral sanctions refer to sanctions imposed by individual countries in accordance with the laws and interests of their national laws and interests outside the United Nations framework.Unilateral sanctions can be subdivided into first -level and secondary sanctions. The second -level sanctions are basically performed in the United States today. Non -American people and enterprises must abide by US sanctions. This is the so -called so -called in news news."Long -arm jurisdiction" controversy.Due to space limitations, this article mainly discusses unilateral sanctions.
Unilateral sanctions
News reports often mention that unilateral sanctions are criticized for violations of international law, and there is a certain legal basis.Asia-African Legal Consultative Organization, including Asia, and Africa, including Japan and China, publicly criticized unilateral sanctions in 2013 to violate the United Nations Charter and the 1970 UN General Assembly in 2013.The declaration of international law principles for establishing friendly relations and cooperation in accordance with the UN Charter.The organization believes that unilateral sanctions violate the basic principles of international relations established by the above charter and declaration, including national sovereign equality, territorial integrity, non -interference in the internal affairs and mutual cooperation.
However, this discussion failed to see the whole leopard.In fact, unilateral sanctions are permitted by the international law framework within a specific range.The International Law Commission, which is responsible for the compilation and development of international law, drafts the state's draft of the state's liability clauses for international illegal actions in 2001, saying that unilateral sanctions are countermeasures for a country.
Two basic principles of unilateral sanctions
According to the draft, countermeasures can be implemented at the same time to meet two conditions at the same time.The first condition is that the countermeasures are against other countries' violation of international obligations; the second condition is that countries that are harmed due to violation of international obligations can take countermeasures to allow the other party to re -perform their obligations.
Here we can draw the basic principles of two countermeasures (ie, unilateral sanctions): "to depart from the principles of international obligations" and "the principle of victims".In addition, the draft is also restricted to the content of countermeasures, including time and humanitarianism.These constraints will not be discussed in detail here.Incidentally, although the draft did not become a legal international treaty in the end, its authority was basically accepted and cited by countries and international courts.Essence
The above two principles can help us measure the international legitimacy of a unilateral sanction, so that we can clarify the controversy of the words between the country's sanctions.Take the United States that uses the most unilateral sanctions in the world as an example. For example, in 1979, the sanctions on Iran after the hostage incident in the Embassy of Iranian Embassy in Iran, which was deserved from international obligations and the principles of victims (this does not include the future of the United States in the future in the United StatesOther sanctions to Iran).
Judging by international law has its blind spots
A number of unilateral sanctions in the United States today, many of them have failed to meet the above two principles at the same time.For example, on the issue of the Russian and Ukraine War, even if Russia deviates from the obligations of respecting the integrity of other countries, the United States itself is not a victim. Therefore, the United States' countermeasures against Russia have lack of international legitimacy.Of course, it is simply judged by international law to judge sanctions and who is wrong, and there are blind spots. For example, if a criminal country is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council with veto, multilateral sanctions will immediately fail!The Russian and Ukraine War is an example. Does Russia support the Security Council to sanction themselves?
In reality, the international political environment in international law most often looks more like an anarchy for the right to speak with power in gang movies, and has more power and obligations to define a clear social environment.In other words, it is difficult for international law to maintain the vulnerable balance between righteousness and national power struggle. As a result, the stronger the country, the greater the space that violates international law.The case of the Russian and Ukraine war tells us that international law cannot be used as the only criterion for examining the rationality of unilateral sanctions, nor is it to judge the gold science law of a country's right to the wrong.But this should not hinder us to understand international law, because only through understanding can we surpass the framework of international law and comprehensively analyze the legitimacy of sanctions.
