This research examines the role of major powers in weakening the legal regime of international sanctions. The sanctions regime, originally established within the multilateral framework of the United Nations Charter, was designed to ensure collective legitimacy and coordinated enforcement through binding legal mechanisms. Over the past four decades, however, major powers-particularly the united States-have increasingly used unilateral and extraterritorial sanctions, bypassing multilateral decision-making processes. This study argues that such practices have led to the gradual erosion of the structural, normative, and institutional foundations of the sanctions regime. The central question of the research is: “Through what mechanisms have major powers weakened the legal sanctions regime?” The hypothesis proposes that unilateral measures, extraterritorial applications, disregard for international adjudicatory mechanisms, and the creation of parallel sanctioning frameworks have gradually undermined the coherence and legitimacy of the international sanctions regime. The research employs a descriptive–analytical method and document-based historical analysis, drawing on legal texts, UN resolutions, WTO panel reports, ICJ rulings, and scholarly literature. The findings demonstrate that unilateral actions and parallel regimes have replaced multilateral coordination, significantly weakening the normative basis and legal authority of the sanctions regime.

Introduction
The international sanctions regime emerged as a central component of post–World War II multilateral governance. Initially, the legal framework of sanctions was firmly rooted in the Charter of the United Nations, especially Article 41, which authorized the Security Council to impose non-military measures to preserve or restore international peace and security. This institutional design intended to ensure that sanctions would be applied collectively, with clear legal authorization and under the supervision of international institutions. In practice, however, the rise of unilateral and extraterritorial sanctions has challenged the coherence of this system. The expansion of the financial power of major economies—most notably the United States—has allowed them to impose sanctions outside the Security Council framework, effectively bypassing the very regime they helped create. This development raises critical questions about the balance between law and power in international relations, the legitimacy of sanctions, and the future of multilateralism. This research focuses specifically on how the structural and normative elements of the sanctions regime have been weakened from within. Rather than examining the political or economic impact of sanctions per se, the analysis centers on the erosion of the regime’s legal and institutional foundations.
Materials and Methods
The study employs a descriptive–analytical and document-based historical methodology, relying on a combination of primary legal instruments and secondary scholarly analyses to trace the evolution and erosion of the sanctions regime. Primary sources include legal and institutional documents such as provisions of the United Nations Charter, Security Council resolutions—including Resolution 2664—and reports of the World Trade Organization (notably DS512 on Russia–Transit), as well as judicial rulings such as the 2018 provisional measures order of the International Court of Justice concerning the 1955 Treaty of Amity. The secondary literature includes historical and legal analyses on the evolution of sanctions and their use as instruments of power. The analytical process unfolds in three sequential stages aligned with the core dimensions of the sanctions regime: first, examining the formation and conceptual foundations of sanctions as a collective security tool; second, analyzing norm-building and institutionalization processes that establish legal and procedural frameworks; and third, assessing institutional structure and functions with emphasis on mechanisms of implementation, oversight, and legitimacy. This structured framework is then applied to assess how unilateral actions by major powers have interacted with, altered, and ultimately weakened these fundamental dimensions of the sanctions regime.
Discussion
The sanctions regime, as a regime of international law, is sustained by several key pillars: (1) normative legitimacy, (2) institutionalized procedures, and (3) collective enforcement. Major Powers have strategically targeted these pillars to advance their national interests, thereby weakening the regime from within.
First, the rise of unilateral sanctions represents a shift from collective to individual decision-making. Since the 1990s, a growing percentage of global sanctions have been imposed outside the UN framework. U.S. measures—such as the 1996 D’Amato Act, the 2010 and 2012 financial sanctions on Iran, and the 2018 maximum pressure campaign—were not backed by multilateral authorization. This widespread unilateralism undermines the perception that sanctions reflect a shared international will.
Second, extraterritoriality allows major powers to extend their domestic sanctions laws to third parties, forcing other states and companies to comply or lose access to critical financial markets. This practice violates the territorial basis of international jurisdiction and weakens the rule-based character of the sanctions regime.
Third, the refusal of major powers to comply with international adjudicatory mechanisms deepens the erosion. Ignoring WTO panel findings on security exceptions and non-compliance with ICJ provisional measures, as in the Iran–U.S. case, shows a selective approach to international law, where rules apply to others but not to the most powerful states.
Fourth, humanitarian exemptions—a cornerstone of the sanctions regime—have been largely ineffective in practice. Financial and logistical barriers created by unilateral sanctions have rendered such exemptions symbolic rather than functional, intensifying humanitarian impacts and eroding the moral legitimacy of the regime.
Fifth, the proliferation of parallel sanctioning frameworks outside the UN has fragmented the once-coherent structure of the sanctions regime. Instead of a single multilateral system, the world now faces overlapping and often conflicting unilateral and regional measures.

Results
The findings clearly confirm the initial hypothesis that the behavior of major powers has directly contributed to the weakening of the legal sanctions regime. This weakening is neither accidental nor purely political; it is embedded in the very mechanisms through which these powers exercise their economic leverage. The erosion is observable across three interrelated dimensions. First, there is a normative erosion, as unilateralism and extraterritoriality have undermined the shared understanding of sanctions as collective security instruments and weakened their legitimacy as multilateral legal tools. Second, an institutional erosion has occurred through the establishment of parallel sanctioning regimes and selective compliance with international legal mechanisms, both of which have fragmented the coherence of the sanctions system and reduced the centrality of multilateral frameworks. Third, humanitarian and legitimacy erosion is evident in the ineffectiveness of humanitarian exemptions and the inconsistent enforcement of sanction measures, which together have damaged the moral and legal foundations of the regime. These findings reveal a growing gap between the formal legal architecture of the sanctions regime and its actual practice. The result is a fragmented, power-driven structure in which major powers—especially the united States—use sanctions not as collective legal instruments but as unilateral geopolitical tools. This transformation has significant implications for the legitimacy of international law, the authority of multilateral institutions, and the stability of the broader global governance system.