INTERNATIONAL AND EUROPEAN SANCTIONS FOR THE TRADE OF DUAL-USE GOODS AND TECHNOLOGIES: A COMPARATIVE OVERVIEW.

One of the basic rules in trade law is the freedom of trade. However, such rule encounters some limits when the object of trade is constituted by strategic and sensitive items, among which there are the so-called 'dual-use' goods and technologies. Despite the difficulty to define them, there is a common understanding that they are materials and items normally used for civilian/peaceful purposes but which may also have military application. Because of their 'sensitiveness' and their risk to affect security, health, the environment etc., their trade needs to be controlled. One form of controlling their trade is represented by the imposition of sanctions to be adopted in case of violation of trade rules.
In our understanding, there are three categories of sanctions: (a) ‘supranational’ ones, enacted at the international and European Union (EU) level, which are addressing the whole States (‘comprehensive’ sanctions, such as embargoes, boycotts and financial measures), or specific individuals or groups involved in legal activities (‘targeted’ or ‘smart’ sanctions, such as asset freezes and travel bans); (b) ‘implementing’ ones, which are enacted at national level. They consist of administrative, civil or criminal rules implementing legally binding/‘hard law’ supranational rules (i.e., national sanctions for violation of international or regional embargoes or other trade sanctions), and those implementing politically binding or ‘soft law’ rules (i.e., national sanctions for the violation of export control regimes, which are the guidelines for dual-use trade, provided by international forum of countries within the Zangger Committee, the Nuclear Suppliers Group, Australia Group, the Wassenaar Arragement and the Missile Technology Control Regime, and at the EU level through the Regulation 428/2009); and (c) ‘unilateral sanctions’ and ‘countermeasures’, which are National autonomous measures against another State or the single citizens of that State.
In this paper, the focus is posed on the first category only. It aims to analyse - with a comparative approach - on the one hand, the types of measures adopted at the level of the United Nations (UN) on the basis of Chapter VII of the UN Charter and through the Security Council resolutions and, on the other one, the restrictive measures introduced within the Common Foreign and Security Policy of the EU.