Abstract

The international legal regime as it pertains to human rights is neither as established nor as definitive as it appears. It suffers from many disadvantages, the first and most important of which is the fact that the international legal regime has never been capable of effectively enforcing its rules or instituting appropriate remedies for its breaches. Some states have attempted to make up for this inability on behalf of international law by undertaking an enforcement mechanism either unilaterally or multilaterally; economic sanctions are often regarded as valuable tools of enforcement to be used against countries which are allegedly engaged in human rights violations. This paper examines the validity of the use of economic sanctions from the legal perspective, in light of existing rules of international law and potential effects of practical problems in using this remedy. The nature and types of economic sanctions will be discussed, as well as certain legal and theoretical considerations and problems underlying international human rights law.

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