Humanitarian Impact of Unilateral Sanctions and Over-Compliance: Theoretical Challenges and Practical Implications (published on September 1, 2025, UN / Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights)

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the negative impact of unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights, Professor Alena Douhan, has convened a group of distinguished scholars and practitioners from diverse disciplines and regions to prepare a collective monograph that examines in depth the complex challenges arising from unilateral sanctions and over-compliance.

The book examines unilateral coercive measures in light of the Charter of the United Nations and other binding norms of international law, including the principles of sovereign equality of States, non-intervention in domestic affairs, and the obligation of States to settle disputes peacefully. It highlights how the expansive application of sanctions regimes, the practice of secondary sanctions, and the rise of de-risking policies frequently undermine peremptory norms (jus cogens) and erode the enjoyment of fundamental rights.

This book shall be viewed as an attempt to look at some theoretical and practical issues of the very notion of and challenges caused by unilateral sanctions from the perspective of international law. It also seeks to assess the impact of unilateral sanctions, means of their enforcement and human rights on groups of human rights, specific human rights (primarily those, which are affected the most), as well as impact on human rights in affected countries or the approach of such countries to the sanctions imposed.

The monograph was prepared under the leadership of the Special Rapporteur and in partnership with the Académie de Géopolitique de Paris, which also hosted the official launch of the book in Paris.

BOOK PRESENTATION: Douhan Alena (dir.), Humanitarian Impact of Unilateral Sanctions and Over-Compliance. Theoretical challenges and practical implications, Paris, Académie de Géopolitique de Paris, 2025