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Abstract

The United States as well as several European Nation’s government in March 2014 declared that the actions and policies of deploying the military forces in Crimea by the Government of the Russian Federation with respect to Ukraine’s internal dispute undermined the democracy in Ukraine. They concluded that this constituted an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy by the United States, European Union as well as several other nations. Thereafter, these nations imposed several trade restrictions with Russia. Russia challenged the trade restrictions on the ground that it violated principles of GATT. If Russia challenges these trade restrictions in front of the WTO appellate body then it would mount the first formal challenge to trade sanctions in the global trade body. The main defence that shall be taken by the United States and the European Union shall be the security exception under Article XXI of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade which gives the WTO’s 159 members the right to take actions that might otherwise violate the body’s rules in the event of an “emergency in international relations”. This paper shall critically analyse the jurisprudence of Article XXI of GAAT to determine whether the sanction imposing nations could validly argue the Security Exceptions to justify their trade sanctions against Russia.

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