Sanctions against Russia: Legal Setting, Intermediate Economic Impact and Potential Political Outcome

We discuss the sanctions against Russia from three perspectives: legal, economic, and political. The sanctions fit into a trend towards recomprehensivation and the use of autonomous rather than UN sanctions. We highlight (1) new sanctions-senders and sanction innovation, indicating which of those are a context-specific development and which are potentially of a more lasting nature, (2) the determinants and economic dynamics of sanctions that are important for an intermediate evaluation of this case, and (3) the uncertainty of the ultimate political outcome of large-scale sanctions. The case suggests that autonomous sanctions are and will remain a central response to serious violations of international law and that they thus require further legal thought.