Economic Sanctions at the Beginning of the Third Millennium

Abstract

The enforcement of obligations in international relations is not governed by
a supranational authority; sanctions (economic, diplomatic, communication)
represent one of the possible ways in which a state may put through its
rights and interests. The group of economic sanctions is very wide, and it
covers measures a!ecting trade or financial flows (e. g. boycotts,
embargoes, prohibitions on investment, payments and capital movements,
withdrawal of tari! preference).The text concerns multilateral sanctions
regimes applied by the United Nations and the EuropeanUnion. The paper
describes procedures leading to the authorization of sanctions and the
circumstances under which the restrictive measures are usually applied. In
both cases, the main development and widest use of sanctions occurred in
the 1990s. Current economic measures are set with regard to the basic
needs of common people, and they should only target the responsible
elites (smart sanctions).