Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Symposium: Embargoes and International Sanctions: Between Legality and Reality

On February 1, 2013, the Faculté Libre de Droit, d’Economie et de Gestion de Paris will host a symposium on "Embargoes and International Sanctions: Between Legality and Reality." The program is here. Here's the idea:
Traditionally used by States in armed conflicts, as an alternative to strictly military means, embargoes and international sanctions are now very frequently implemented in peacetime. Apart from the case of measures decided by the UN Security Council, sanctions are enacted today by regional organizations (for instance the European Union) as well as by States acting unilaterally (e.g. the United States), and their purposes are varied : struggle against the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, against terrorism, punition of States deemed responsible of violations of human rights, etc. Their legitimacy is frequently called into question, and their implementation raises major issues, which may be apprehended either from the viewpoint of international law, or of the study of international relations. This symposium aims at providing a forum to international experts of these two fields of research, who will try to discern the major axes of the legal as well as the geopolitical problems related to the contemporary practice of sanctions and embargoes.