Pierre-Emmanuel Dupont, is a lawyer based in Paris,France. His practice is centered on public international law and international investment. His article “Countermeasures and Collective Security: The Case of the EU Sanctions Against Iran” will appear shortly in (2012) 17 Journal of Conflict and Security Law but is now available here
The additional sanctions agreed in early 2012 by the European Union against Iran in relation to its nuclear program (see Council Decision 2012/35/CFSP of 23 January 2012, and Council Regulation 267/2012 of 23 March 2012), including an embargo on imports of Iranian oil and the freeze of assets of the Iranian Central Bank, go well beyond those mandated by the successive UN Security Council resolutions (Res. 1737 (2006); 1747 (2007); 1803 (2008) and 1929 (2010); for a comprehensive analysis of Res. 1737 and Res. 1929, see e.g. D H Joyner, ‘The Security Council as a Legal Hegemon’, (2012) 43 Georgetown Journal of International Law 225-257, at 238-248.). Given their unprecedented extent, they raise various specific issues regarding their lawfulness under international law. I have written an article (a prepublication version of which is available here) in the forthcoming issue of the Journal of Conflict and Security Law, which aims at characterizing these measures. In this piece I argue that the EU measures cannot be characterised as measures of retorsion or as sanctions. Rather they are to be regarded as countermeasures. However, characterising these measures as such raises the question whether it is open to States or regional organizations to take countermeasures in circumstances where the UN Security Council has already adopted measures under Chapter VII of the Charter.
According to the ILC, a retorsion is ‘unfriendly’ conduct ‘which is not inconsistent with any international obligation of the State engaging in it even though it may be a response to an internationally wrongful act’ (see Commentaries on the Draft articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts, in 2001 ILC Yearbook II(2), at 128). While it is true that measures restricting or impeding trade relations (in general or in specific areas), such as an embargo, are a typical example, often quoted, of retorsion (see ILC Commentaries on State Responsibility Articles at 128), it remains that, as it has been rightly noted, measures of the kind of those enacted by the EU in January 2012 ‘go beyond mere expressions of disapproval and involve the suspension of the performance of international legal obligations otherwise owed to Iran’ (N. Jansen Calamita, Sanctions, Countermeasures, and the Iranian Nuclear Issue, (2009) 42 Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law 1393-1442, at 1397). Indeed, in this case, the EU measures actually imply non-performance of various international legal obligations owed to Iran, for instance treaty commitments under BITs (see e.g. Iran-Germany BIT, 1965, Iran-France BIT, 2003). It may also be considered that the oil embargo, and in particular the mandatory termination of existing contracts related to import, purchase and transport of petrochemical products, raises prima facie an issue of compliance with a customary standard of investment protection. Read the rest of this entry…
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