Unilateral economic coercion in international law

International politics has a chaotic structure by nature and the principal role of the states in this system has channelled into anarchy. States have been in struggle at different stages throughout the history in this system which has the notion of national interest is at the core. However, it was experienced that these struggles have negative impacts on the whole subjects of the international system. As a consequence of this situation, there has been overcame a new milestone in the international arena with the prohibition of use of force. Therefore, nature of the struggle in the international system was demonstrated by its historical and legal background in the first chapter of this study. The prohibition of use of force has led the states to resort alternative ways for influencing each other. These coercive measures out of war resorted by the states can be in the form of collective or unilateral measures. At this point, ambiguous position of unilateral economic coercion in international law has led the states to use these measures for influencing each other in a way contrary to international law. Therefore, the ambiguous position of unilateral economic coercion in international law will be examined in the second section of the first chapter. The ambiguity on unilateral economic coercion caused question marks about the legitimacy of these measures. Therefore, the second chapter of this study will be allocated to the legitimacy of unilateral economic coercive measures in international law. In this context, the historical background and basic motivations of the states for using of these measures will be firstly examined. The correlation between unilateral economic coercion and the economic power elements of the states resulted that big states usually practice these measures in the international arena. This situation necessitates the analysis of general approaches of the international dominant actors regarding these measures. The ambiguous structure of unilateral economic coercion in international law has led to the states to practice these measures by pleading their sovereign rights and coercive measures out of war. In this context, the principle of sovereign equality of states and prohibition of intervention into internal affairs as an extension of the sovereign equality principle will be at the top of the agenda for examination of the legitimacy of unilateral economic coercion. Furthermore, there has been attempts regarding the legitimacy problem of unilateral economic coercion by the small states which are usually targets of these measures. This situation necessitates the examination of whether a customary international law rule formed in the legitimacy problem of these measures. Therefore, position of unilateral economic coercion by prohibition of intervention into internal affairs and customary international law in the last section of this study.