Unilateral sanctions – a vestige of a unipolar world: The conceptualization of the legal position of the BRICS Countries

Abstract

The efforts of the BRICs countries to establish a fair international legal order determine the scholarly interest in conceptualizing the legal position on the inadmissibility of the use of unlawful unilateral coercive measures in international relations. This paper adopts an interdisciplinary approach to the study of the phenomenon of combating discriminatory sanctions policies of individual states and international organizations, including elements of economic, legal and international legal analysis. The subject of the authors’ interest is not the methodology of “economic analysis” of legal phenomena, which is recognized in legal science; rather, it is an attempt to synthesize the methods of various disciplines, allowing a comprehensive assessment of the possibility of countering “sanctions threats” to the state sovereignty of Russia as one of the members of BRICS. The main directions of the economic policy of the state in the conditions of the “sanctions regime,” the features of acts of Russian legislation aimed at protecting sovereignty from illegal unilateral restrictive measures, in the historical context, and taking into account modern views, the doctrinal approaches to the concept of “sanctions” in the science and practice of international law are all analyzed. As a result, it is found that the pluralism of approaches to the definition of “sanctions” is maintained, which is explained by the insufficient level of international legal regulation of international coercion and the continuing decentralization of the system of international law. The grounds for the legitimacy of sanctions mechanisms operate in the system of collective security of the U.N., based on the analysis of the provisions of the U.N. Charter and the normative array of recommendatory norms of the U.N. General Assembly. The evolution of the mechanism of non-military coercive measures of the U.N. Security Council is analyzed, and the parameters of the legitimacy of sanctions by regional international organizations on the basis of the provisions of the U.N. Charter are determined. Normative contours of “soft regulators” of counteractions to illegitimate unilateral coercive measures are established.