Sanctions in the System of Counteracting Criminal Asset Circulation: Criminological and Legal Analysis of the International Dimension of Application

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.32631/pb.2025.4.09

Keywords:

armed aggression, war, international crimes, crimes of an international category, criminal circulation of assets, sanctions, combating crime, criminological and legal analysis.

Abstract

The article is devoted to defining the concept, place and role of sanctions as a criminological measure in the system of combating criminal asset trafficking at the international level. The concept of ‘sanctions’ as a category of international law has been studied, their criminological nature has been clarified, and their place in the system of combating crime in general and criminal asset trafficking in particular has been determined.

As a result of the study, a multifactorial matrix of the international dimension of sanctions as a form of state responsibility for internationally wrongful acts has been proposed. It includes: a) a subject-target component with three categories of states, organisations and individuals targeted by sanctions; b) a subject-content component of countermeasures within the framework of bringing states to international legal responsibility, which covers economic, political-diplomatic and military-political sanctions; c) the scale of the deployment of repressive and preventive sanctions, which is represented by three levels – global, regional and local. Economic restrictive measures are sectoral (sectors of the economy with a list of sanctioned entities with which business contacts are prohibited), nomenclature (lists of goods), and personal (relating to specific individuals).

The dysfunctionality of the UN as an entity for the formation and implementation of global international sanctions policy has been proven. Amendments and additions to the UN Charter have been proposed to regulate the procedure for the loss of veto power by a permanent member of the Security Council whose actions have been condemned by a resolution of the UN General Assembly. It has been argued that the implementation of such a step would unblock the Security Council's ability to respond adequately to internationally illegal acts by states, in particular Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.

A gap has been identified in the criminal law regulation of relations in the field of enforcement of the provisions and restrictions established by international sanctions. However, eliminating this gap requires the adoption of a basic regulatory legal act on determining the legal regime of international sanctions on the territory of Ukraine.

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Author Biography

  • Yu. V. Shvets, Kharkiv National University of Internal Affairs

    Candidate of Law.

References

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Published

2025-12-29

How to Cite

“Sanctions in the System of Counteracting Criminal Asset Circulation: Criminological and Legal Analysis of the International Dimension of Application” (2025) Law and Safety, 99(4), pp. 117–127. doi:10.32631/pb.2025.4.09.