This lunchtime seminar is organised by the Department of Law of the University of Luxembourg.
Abstract:
The sanctions imposed on Russia for its unlawful invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 have once again brought to the fore the relationship between unilateral sanctions and the ever-elusive notion of the rule of law. Ensuring that sanctions are ‘rule of law compliant’ is a preoccupation of policymakers, scholars and, perhaps most importantly, those entities who are subject to (and often challenge) such sanctions. This paper asks: in this context, does the rule of law matter, and if so why? Further, what exactly does it mean to make sanctions ‘rule of law compliant’?
With regard to whether the rule of law matters, it is argued that compliance with the rule of law is intimately linked to law’s claim to authority. In this regard, ensuring that sanctions comply with the rule of law, in turn, strengthens law’s claim that it provides reasons for action for all entities affected by such sanctions, including states, corporations, international organizations and individuals.
Relatedly, the project takes on the challenging task of identifying the values and interests that sanctions strive to protect, and tries to bring sanctions within the purview of a legal framework that ensures checks and balances in the exercise of power. The project does not conceptualise the rule of law as an unqualified good, and draws on critical literature in acknowledging that it has the potential to act as a Trojan Horse, evangelising certain ‘Western’ values disguised as universally accepted.
Turning to the second question, namely what compliance with the rule of law requires, it is argued that that the rule of law’s substantive demands are context-dependent. This is due to the fact the rule of law plays a different role within different legal orders in accordance with their different nature, subjects, and architecture. As such, it is necessary to elaborate its requirements within these different contexts. For the purposes of our inquiry into EU sanctions on Russia, this means the domestic, EU and international orders.
One of the paper’s central normative claims is that compliance with the rule of law must be assessed at two distinct moments: the first being the triggering of resort to sanctions, and the second being their implementation. In this vein, it is argued that EU sanctions can only be made ‘rule of law compliant’ if they are (i) triggered by specific pre-defined sets of factual circumstances, (ii) designed to induce compliance with international legal norms which protect common values; and (iii) adopted in a manner which conforms to a certain procedural core of the rule of law that includes non-retroactivity, non-arbitrariness and so on.
About James Devaney:
James Devaney is Senior Lecturer and Programme Director of the LLM in International Law at the University of Glasgow. For 2023/2024 he is a re:constitution fellow, undertaking the project ‘EU Sanctions Against Russia and the Rule of Law’. He is also a Member of the Bar of the State of New York and has advised states in proceedings before the ICJ. His research interests relate primarily to international courts and tribunals and legal reasoning.
Language: English
This is a free seminar. Registration is mandatory.