Economic wars through instruments of trade control.

This dissertation analyses the phenomenon of “economic wars” conducted through instruments of trade control from an international law perspective. In recent years, States have increasingly engaged in inter-State confrontations by implementing economic and trade-restricting measures to pursue foreign policy, security, geopolitical, and strategic objectives. Yet, crucial concepts such as “economic war”, “economic coercion”, and “sanction” remain legally ambiguous and only partially regulated within the existing international legal framework. This study focuses specifically on trade-restricting instruments employed in inter-State economic confrontations. It examines how these instruments are designed, justified, and classified under international law, by distinguishing between measures originally conceived to coerce and trade instruments that, although designed for commercial or regulatory purposes, are increasingly employed with coercive or strategic objectives. The research adopts a doctrinal legal methodology grounded in the classical approach to international law sources, complemented by a historical analysis of the evolution of relevant concepts, principles, and State practice, and by the discussion of selected case studies. The central research question – What constitutes an economic war today? – is addressed through three correlated research questions: (i) In the absence of a formal definition of “economic war” in international law, which related concepts are relevant, and to what extent are they recognised or regulated within the existing international legal framework?; (ii) Which trade instruments are employed to conduct ‘economic wars’, and how can they be legally distinguished?; (iii) Which trade control instruments, and on what legal basis, have States and other actors adopted in recent key cases of economic confrontations? The dissertation is structured in four chapters. Chapter I examines the concept and legal significance of “economic war” and economic coercion, analysing the possible thresholds under international law and the relationship with crucial principles, including the prohibition of the use of force, self-defence, and non-intervention. Chapters II and III explore the instruments most frequently employed in economic wars by analysing their respective legal frameworks. More specifically, the second chapter focuses on trade instruments designed to coerce – including UN non-armed measures, ARSIWA countermeasures, EU restrictive measures, and unilateral sanctioning measures – while the third chapter discusses trade instruments originally designed with specific trade objectives yet increasingly implemented with coercive and strategic purposes – including WTO-regulated and justifiable trade-restricting measures and commercial policy instruments. Chapter IV applies the analysis to selected cases of economic trade wars, exploring the Western States-Russian Federation sanctions war, the United States-China trade war, and the China-Lithuania dispute. To support classification and interpretation, this dissertation develops two “analytical tools”: a working definition of ‘sanction’ – elaborated in Chapter II – and a legal classification test – developed in Chapter IV. Overall, the dissertation argues that “economic war” is best understood not as an autonomous legal category, but rather as a strategic conflictual context in which trade-restricting measures are reciprocally and consistently employed with coercive, strategic, security, or economic objectives, and in which existing categories of international law are progressively stretched, overlapped, and reoriented beyond their original design.