RI webinar on Economic Sanctions: Legal and Policy Implications

On 18 January 2022, the Rideau Institute, in cooperation with the Human Rights Research and Education Center, Univ of Ottawa and the Group of 78, hosted a webinar to the explore the legal and policy implications of non-UN authorized economic sanctions, a policy tool that is increasingly favoured by Canada, other western states and regional organizations like the EU and the African Union.

Economic sanctions have become an increasingly favored tool of international relations over the last several decades, but they have also become increasingly controversial.

Speakers: Professor Craig Martin, inaugural RI Senior Fellow, and author of the RI report, Economic Sanctions Under International Law, a Guide for Canadian Policy and EU sanctions expert, Professor Clara Portela, were joined by moderator and RI President Peggy Mason for this timely discussion.

Craig Martin is a Professor of Law at Washburn University School of Law, and the Co-Director of the Washburn International and Comparative Law Center. A graduate of the Royal Military College of Canada (B.A. Hons. His.), Osaka University, Graduate School of Law and Politics, (LL.M), and the University of Toronto, Faculty of Law (J.D.), he teaches public international law, the law of armed conflict, international human rights law, international climate change law, and both comparative and U.S. constitutional law.

Clara Portela holds a PhD from the European University Institute in Florence (Italy) and an MA from the Free University of Berlin (Germany). She is a professor of Political Science at the University of Valencia (Spain), having previously served at Singapore Management University (Singapore) and the European Union Institute for Security Studies (EUISS) in Paris (France). She received the THESEUS Award for Promising Research on European Integration for her monograph European Union Sanctions and Foreign Policy. She has been a visiting scholar at Carleton University and a visiting professor at the University of Victoria.