The aim of this conceptual chapter is to define international secondary sanctions and to address the contemporary legal challenges they raise. It proposes to explain such complex legal mechanisms, to overcome the apparent definitional wanderings in their regard, and to identify concrete keys to tackle the legal problems encountered by public and private practitioners. To this end, the analysis begins with an explanation of the core concepts underlying secondary sanctions and focuses on the aim of (extraterritorial) secondary sanctions to extend their scope, what the author calls ‘the reach dilemma’. The unilateral and extraterritorial mechanics of secondary sanctions are then illustrated by three original figures, allowing the reader to grasp the complexity of the different levers involved. The study then addresses the additional difficulty arising from the apparent plurality of definitions of secondary sanctions and proposes an explanatory key enabling to retain only one working definition of secondary sanctions stricto sensu. Finally, the chapter goes on with the identification of the main difficulties currently facing public and private legal practices in this field and presents legal solutions that offer avenues for resolution, in the short, medium and long term.

A few years into the post-Cold War era, the adoption by the US of sanctions legislation geared to penalise foreign firms investing in countries under Washington’s sanctions elicited resistance from European allies, which coalesced into an unusually unified response by the EU. This response notably combined elements from the Community trade toolbox and that of the répertoire of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). In the event, a negotiated solution to the conflict could be reached. However, secondary sanctions resurfaced some fifteen years into the new millennium, most conspicuously in the framework of the settlement of the Iran nuclear proliferation crisis, pitting Brussels and Washington again. Notably, the use of secondary sanctions after Trump administration’s withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action threatened its survival altogether, jeopardising a key CFSP goal. This chapter explains the background to the current political conflict over secondary sanctions, illuminates the political dynamics that inform it, presents the tools developed for addressing the dilemma they pose to the EU and assesses recent developments.

The prohibition of the threat or use of force, enshrined in Article 2(4) of the Charter of the United Nations, is the most important principle in the charter, and the need for international solidarity through the collective action of third states is of the utmost importance when a flagrant violation of that principle occurs. After briefly introducing the case study of the 2022 Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, this chapter analyses whether the current customary legal regime on international responsibility provides for any legal obstacles precluding indirectly injured states from adopting secondary sanctions. In particular, the chapter analyses the use of the concept of ‘lawful measures’ in Articles 41(1) and 54 of Articles on the Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts. It also considers that the collective system of the United Nations should be conceived, according to these same provisions, as the preferred framework for cooperative action. The chapter finally argues that when the unlawful use of force reaches the level of an act of aggression third states that are indirectly injured should be able to react through secondary sanctions. These measures, if adopted when the United Nations Security Council is deadlocked, should be considered as lawful because their objective is to remedy the wrongful non-compliance of third states with collective obligations arising from a serious breach of jus cogens norms by the aggressor state.

This chapter explores how the imposition of unprecedented sanctions against Russia following the large-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the constant cat-and-mouse game of enforcement and evasion that ensued have altered the secondary sanctions landscape. More specifically, it examines to what extent, notwithstanding its longstanding and entrenched opposition to far-reaching US secondary sanctions, the European Union has gradually moved towards adding a ‘secondary’ layer to its own sanctions toolbox. The chapter first exposes the EU’s ambiguity towards extraterritoriality, both within and without the sanctions domain. It subsequently zooms in on a number of specific EU measures, namely the imposition of the so-called ‘price cap’ on Russian oil, the adoption of far-reaching import and export restrictions, including the prohibition to import certain Russian products even after these are located or have already been processed in third countries, and the threat of financial sanctions against, and criminal prosecution of, non-EU persons that facilitate the circumvention of EU sanctions against Russia. It then offers some concluding observations.

This chapter addresses the issue of legality of ‘secondary sanctions’ from the viewpoint of international investment law. The theoretical situation considered is that of a foreign investor, having made an investment in the US, being subjected to penalties or restrictions under a US secondary sanctions regime, based on its conduct of certain transactions with a targeted country or entity, even though such business activities have no US jurisdictional ‘nexus’. The chapter first attempts at identifying the potentially relevant substantive standards of investment protection, including the prohibition of expropriation without compensation and the ‘fair and equitable treatment’ standard. The likelihood of a successful invocation of these standards by the claimant in an investor–State arbitration claim is discussed. In that process, it is considered inter alia whether the deterrent effect of secondary sanctions may per se amount to a violation of an investment protection instrument. The chapter then turns to the assessment of the possible defences that the respondent State may put forward in order to seek to escape its liability for the possible breach of a standard of bilateral investment treaties, notably defences relating to ‘security exceptions’ provisions in treaties and allegations as to the ‘illegality’ of the investment.

China has long been a major target of primary sanctions and more recently of secondary sanctions. Like many other states, China has begun to explore legal efforts to resist US secondary sanctions, for instance by adopting a blocking statute. Unfortunately, it appears that these legal efforts, like those of many other states, cannot make much difference in practice, although they are not meaningless. However, China is different from many other states in that it has the potential to economically or technically overtake the US. Due to its ever-growing economic power, together with its legal efforts, China is expected to be able to neutralise US secondary sanctions in the future. Going forward, China, despite its growing power, is expected to maintain its basic policy of opposing unilateral sanctions and is unlikely to impose secondary sanctions to achieve its foreign policy aims. It will continue to emphasise the principles of sovereignty equality and non-intervention in internal affairs.

This chapter considers whether and to what extent secondary sanctions that contravene commitments under trade and investment agreements may be justifiable under security and general exceptions. It analyses the jurisprudence of various international courts and tribunals on the matter, while focusing on the text of General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) Articles XX and XXI (which many international economic agreements replicate or adjust). For non-self-judging security exceptions, it concludes, justifiability hinges on the design of sanctions, their targeting of ‘military’ products or services, and the demonstrability of an essential security risk for the sanctioning party. Secondary sanctions might also be justifiable under general exceptions, which feature finer legal criteria to permit measures that pursue legitimate objectives while controlling their abusive application. The chapter considers the enforcement-related exception of GATT Article XX(d), as well as the public morals exception of GATT Article XX(a), which was invoked to justify sanctions in United States – Tariff Measures on Certain Goods from China. As with other measures at the intersection between economic relations and security, the assessment of secondary sanctions under these exceptions becomes particularly challenging in light of their usual objective: restricting trade or investment vis-à-vis specified states, on the basis not of impersonal objectives but of a state’s perception of its essential security interests.

This chapter provides an overview of methods for data collection in Conversation Analysis and practical advice on collecting interactional data. We touch on several recurrent issues that researchers encounter in the process. These issues include accessing data; the use of existing data (including user-uploaded, like YouTube); navigating gatekeepers in accessing a setting; building trust with members of a setting; building ethnographic understanding of activities under examination; obtaining ethical approvals; protecting privacy of participants; methods and materials for informed consent (including with populations with diminished capacities); devising a recording schedule; deciding when/how often to record; selecting the right quantity and type of recording equipment; considerations of spatial and audio environments; the use of alternative technologies for recording; recording mediated interactions; procedures and check-lists for before recording; positioning and framing the camera; when to press record and when to press stop; navigating the presence of the researcher-recorder on site; and gathering supplementary documentation from the setting.

This chapter discusses best practices for conducting a conversation-analytic (CA) investigation into (discourse) particles (or discourse markers). Particles are ubiquitous in talk-in-interaction, making them an attractive research target. CA research into particles aims to elucidate their interactional deployment in the language under study and, more generally, to develop a deeper understanding of the infrastructure of social interaction. The chapter discusses conceptual underpinnings of the CA approach to analyzing particles: first, its orientation to social action; second, its emphasis on positionality (including the particle’s position in a turn, a sequence, a repair segment, and a conversation as a unit); and, third, its use of particular evidentiary procedures (such as the ‘next-turn proof procedure,’ positional deployment, distributional evidence, and deviant cases). The application of these principles is illustrated with two case studies: a semasiological study of the Russian particle nu and an onomasiological study of how courses of action are launched via so and oh prefaced turns. The chapter shows that, while fraught with challenges, a study of particles can lead to important and unexpected findings about social interaction.

This chapter describes and empirically illustrates an approach to analyzing categorial phenomena in talk-in-interaction, grounded in the distinctive conversation analytic practice of building and analyzing collections. We begin by outlining a core set of observations made by Harvey Sacks in implementing a shift from conventional social scientific treatments of categories (e.g., gender, race, sexuality, age) as analysts’ resources, to instead examining them as members’ resources. That is, instead of using categories to study the social world, Sacks’ approach introduced resources for seeing how participants in social interactions use and self-administer categories. We then present an analysis of a collection of openings of interactions from ordinary conversational and institutional settings, considering some ways in which participants explicitly and tacitly use and manage categories in the initial moments of these interactions. Using this analysis as an exemplar, we address a set of challenges and critiques associated with conversation analytic research on categories. We thereby describe how CA can provide an empirically rigorous means of examining the ‘mutually constitutive’ relationship between categories and other ‘generic’ interactional structures and practices – and thus for analyzing the situated (re)production of categories, from the most mundane to those most strongly associated with distributions of power and privilege.