Jacob Batinga, Reconciling the Global North-South Divide on the Use of Force: Economic Coercion and the Evolving Interpretation of Article 2(4), 41 Wis. Int'l L.J. 103 (2024).
Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter prohibits the “threat or use of force” in interstate relations. States and scholars from the Global North have traditionally interpreted this article as an instrument-based prohibition: the employment of military weapons was necessary to qualify as a use of force, and therefore economic sanctions could never implicate Article 2(4). In contrast, scholars and states from the Global South have objected to this narrow interpretation, arguing that since economic coercion can produce disastrous humanitarian consequences that mirror the effects of traditional military acts, economic sanctions should thus qualify as a use of force. Despite this alternative approach, the Global North’s instrument-based interpretation of Article 2(4) has been adopted as customary international law, and economic coercion is explicitly disqualified from classification as a use of force under the current international legal framework. However, due to the rising threat of cyberattacks, the Global North has begun to recognize that the conventional interpretation of “force” is insufficient in an era of digitized economies and advancing technology. In recent years, scholars and states have increasingly abandoned the instrument-based approach in favor of an alternative framework: violations of Article 2(4) should be determined based on the “scale and effects” of a state action, rather than on the instrument used.
In light of the evolution of Article 2(4) interpretation, this Article presents a novel contribution to scholarship by applying the new “scale and effects” framework to the traditional debates around economic coercion, arguing that certain economic sanctions—those which are both extraterritorially applied and comprehensive in nature—may constitute a use of force when their “scale and effects” resemble acts universally recognized as violating Article 2(4). In applying this new framework, this Article suggests that the Global South’s traditional conception of economic coercion is increasingly viable in light of the newly adopted Article 2(4) interpretation.
