Abstract
Much criticism of sanctions revolves around their lack of legitimacy as explicitly harm-oriented tools of external interference into the domestic affairs of states. Applying insights from legal theory and experimental psychology, this paper argues that the legitimacy of international actions principally depends on whom the sender is. The paper distinguishes three types of senders in the contemporary sanctions landscape: the United Nations as an embodiment of universally shared norms and values, individual states imposing foreign policy sanctions alone or in coalitions, and regional organisations acting against their own members in case of violated core community norms. Scrutinizing legal bases and political justifications for all three groups of senders, the paper finds that regional organisations have a unique chance to clear up sanctions' legitimacy deficit. First, their sanctions are constructed as in-group measures, which softens their association with external interference. Second, their sanctions follow from a mutual contract between the regional community and its individual members. Third, regional organisations prioritise solving acute normative crises over protracted symbolic posturing, and consequently combine punitive isolation with positive modes of engagement.
Panel: Norm Violation, Sanctions, and the Punitive Use of Force