Publicaties

In recent years states seem to have awoken to perceived threats of economic coercion enabled by ‘Weaponized Interdependence’ (WI) – a phenomenon popularized in international relations but has yet to gain traction in public international law. WI describes how states can weaponize economic ties to exploit other states’ vulnerabilities arising out of mutual interdependence in a globalized economy. This WI framing may help elucidate the unresolved question on the lawfulness of economic coercion under public international law. In keeping with the ICJ’s holding in Nicaragua, the prohibition of economic coercion is coupled with the principle of non-intervention, leading to a de jure narrow and de facto inoperable notion of unlawful economic coercion as a form of prohibited intervention. Thus, there is no ‘stand-alone’ prohibition of economic coercion. However, states’ increasing opposition to economic coercion enabled by WI (‘network-based’ coercion), for instance expressed in the G7 Statement on Economic Resilience and Economic Security, EU Anti-Coercion Instrument and European Economic Security Strategy, could reflect evidence of emerging customary rules on economic coercion. Further, WI in crucial economic networks, such as critical technology value chains, illustrates how the principle of non-intervention alone may be inadequate to address the corrosive effects of WI on interdependent economic networks binding together the international community of states. Ultimately, WI provides an opening to rethink the rules of international law governing states’ exercise of their economic (coercive) powers in a world where chokepoints in vital economic networks are concentrated in the hands of a few or even one state.