9 - The Application of the Principle of Non-intervention to Secondary Sanctions

Summary

This chapter starts from the premise that secondary sanctions are invariably adopted to exert pressure upon foreign economic or financial actors operating in third states, with the intention to modify their conduct in alignment with the primary sanctions already imposed by the sanctioning state against the target state. As follows, due to their extraterritorial scope and their exceptional capacity to encroach upon the sovereignty of other countries, the legal status of secondary sanctions under international law is controversial. This contribution seeks to elucidate if secondary sanctions may amount to economic coercion and whether as a result these measures could constitute a breach to the principle of non-intervention. The chapter closes by exploring the potential avenues for regime interaction between the rules governing the exercise of jurisdiction by states and the principle of non-intervention in the context of secondary sanctions.