The International Economic Law and Policy Working Group and the International Law Working Group are very pleased to welcome Dr. Zeina Jallad, the UN Special Rapporteur on Unilateral Coercive Measures, for a conversation on unilateral coercive measures.
On 4 December 2026, the United Nations marks the second observance of the International Day against Unilateral Coercive Measures, which the General Assembly proclaimed in Resolution 79/293 of 16 June 2025. Three weeks ahead of this observance, this event brings the UN Special Rapporteur into conversation with academics and practitioners to examine what these measures are, how international law should understand them, and what they cost in human terms.
Over the past decades, unilateral coercive measures have moved to the center of economic statecraft. Their use has grown steadily, and, for many countries, they have become a tool of first resort . The view from the populations on which they are imposed is different, as the number of countries and people adversely affected by them continues to climb. Whatever their political aims, sanctions often operate as instruments of coercion, meant to bring about a change within the sanctioned state. Their costs travel through trade, finance, and payments. They fall on companies and banks that overcomply, on firms caught between conflicting regimes, and, above all, on populations whose human rights are deteriorating and whose access to food, medicine, and critical goods or services is narrowing. They are also turned against international institutions and those who serve them, as the US sanctions imposed on officials of the International Criminal Court, among others, and announced in October 2026 against the entire Court itself have shown. Amidst this context, sanctions cases are increasingly brought before national, regional, and international adjudicatory mechanisms as well as debated before regional and international organizations, thereby (con)testing the legality, power, and limits of such measures. The latest UN General Assembly resolution on the necessity of ending the US embargo on Cuba, and its associated debates, are the most recent examples of such contestation.
The UN Special Rapporteur on the negative impact of unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights assesses how economic sanctions, trade embargoes, and financial restrictions affect human rights and international law. Established by the Human Rights Council in 2014, the mandate has documented the effects of sanctions on the ground through country visits, and developed a significant body of thematic work on unilateral coercive measures. In her first report to the General Assembly, presented in September 2026, Dr. Jallad places the human cost of these measures, and the lived experience of the populations who bear it, at the center of the mandate’s work.
At this event, the Special Rapporteur invites participants to contribute to the discussions and thematic areas the mandate engages with, and to explore the new forms that unilateral coercive measures take and how they affect international law as well as human life. The event will start with a keynote speech, followed by two roundtables in conversation with the Special Rapporteur.
The first roundtable focuses on unilateral coercive measures (UCMs) and their definition. What are UCMs, and what determines their (il)legality in light of international law, including the UN Charter, the law of state responsibility, and the principle of neutrality? The discussion will engage with the contested terminology itself. Several of the states that impose such measures speak of sanctions or restrictive measures and maintain that unilateral coercive measures have no agreed definition in international law, while the language of UCMs is being used by other actors, as most recently in the BRICS New Delhi Declaration of September 2026. The roundtable will also address the contemporary manifestations of UCMs, from measures adopted in the name of counterterrorism to forms of coercion that may lie hidden in the language of negotiations, such as climate change negotiations.
The second roundtable addresses specific issues and practical aspects, centering the discussion on the human cost of UCMs. It will examine the current state of sanctioning and defunding international institutions; the secondary impacts and extraterritorial reach of sanctions, and the responsibility of the states that impose them; and the conditions under which UCMs may amount to a form of collective punishment. Discussants will also ask how bank overcompliance can be understood and corrected. Finally, the roundtable will ask why so-called targeted sanctions continue to meet opposition from many states of the Global South, and whether they are, in practice, as targeted as their name suggests.
The discussion for each topic will be open to all event participants, and relevant material for reflection will be distributed before the event.
Zeina Jallad’s Bio
Zeina Jallad took up her functions as a UN Special Rapporteur on 1 May 2026. She is an international lawyer and Assistant Professor of International Law at the American University of Beirut (AUB), where she is also the Director of the Palestine Land Studies Center (PLSC). With over two decades of experience across the United Nations, academia, and international legal and policy institutions in the Middle East, Europe, and Southeast Asia, she brings expertise in international human rights law, international criminal law and accountability, international criminal investigations, gender justice, and land and natural resource rights. She has contributed to international accountability efforts, including with the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism (IIIM) for Syria, and has worked with multiple UN entities and international organizations on issues of sanctions, criminal accountability, rule of law, and gender and transitional justice.
Please note that the event is only on-premises.
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