On the Demarcation between Counter-Measures and Retortions in the Contemporary International Law

Currently, States are increasingly acting in circumvention of the established system of the UN Security Council, using individual, including group restrictive measures against other States in order to make them act in a certain way acceptable to the imposer of restrictions. The article is devoted to the study of retaliatory restrictive measures taken by the state-object of restrictions. Based on the analysis of the provisions of the Articles on Responsibility of a State for Internationally Wrongful Acts, international treaties, as well as the practice of imposing restrictive measures the following conclusions were formulated. To qualify correctly the actions of the State subject to restrictive measures, it is necessary to determine the nature, content and legal nature of the restrictive measures, the response to which was the actions of this State. Depending on the legality of restrictive measures, retaliatory measures will be either countermeasures or retortions. What they have in common is their necessarily retaliatory nature, which makes these measures legitimate.