International legal restrictions on the ability to lawfully impose international economic sanctions

International economic sanctions have become one of the key instruments of influence of states in the international arena, aimed at maintaining peace, security, ensuring human rights and responding to violations of international law. However, the application of such measures is often accompanied by legal and political contradictions, since they may violate the principles of sovereign equality, non-interference in the internal affairs of states and free trade. The article analyzes the international legal restrictions that regulate the possibility of applying sanctions and outlines the problematic aspects of the practical application of sanctions in modern conditions. The main sources of legitimacy of sanctions are decisions of the UN Security Council adopted in accordance with Article 41 of the UN Charter and mechanisms arising from regional agreements. At the same time, unilateral sanctions introduced without the sanction of international organizations remain a controversial instrument that often arouses criticism due to the possible violation of the principle of non-interference. Particular attention is paid to the analysis of key principles that limit states in imposing sanctions: proportionality, targeting and the inadmissibility of creating humanitarian crises. Sanctions that violate basic human rights or complicate access to humanitarian aid contradict the norms of international humanitarian law. Separately, emphasis is placed on the possibility of improving international legal mechanisms for the application of economic sanctions. Certain vectors of such improvement are proposed. In particular, the author notes the importance of reforming the UN Security Council mechanism in terms of adopting resolutions - expanding the membership, limiting the veto right, transparency in decision-making. The importance of strengthening the role of UN subsidiary bodies and introducing humanitarian exceptions is emphasized, the latter should allow the import of humanitarian aid, medicines and food. It is noted that today it is advisable to harmonize approaches to unilateral sanctions, which are imposed, as a rule, by countries without the consent of the UN and other international organizations, justifying this by political necessity. The conclusions of the work emphasize the need to improve the mechanisms of legal regulation of sanctions, which would ensure their consistency with the norms of international law and the principles of justice.