The EU Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime: between Self Help and Global Governance

Abstract By adopting a Global Human Rights Sanctions regime, the European Union took new step in leveraging its power to respond human rights violations globally. The regime has general scope, and targets both state non-state actors. This paper shows that this occupies tension zone between two competing approaches sanctions: self-help approach perceives sanctions as deriving authority from states’ sovereignty subservient their foreign policy, global governance views bound by objectives of specific international legal regimes they enforce. these comes into stark view when constructing listing criteria policy sanctions, which determine scope duration measures. Whether how subsequent practice resolves will be determined certain legislative interpretive moves EU Council Court.