Restrictive Measures to the Ends of Western Endeavours : An Assessment of the Legitimacy of EU Sanctions on Zimbabwe through an Analysis of their Political Objectives and Compliance with International Law

Abstract: This paper analyses the EU’s sanctions on Zimbabwe against their political objectives and compliance with international law. In doing so it operationalises the concepts of legitimacy, legality, sovereignty, and statehood under the framework of Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL). From this purview, this paper concludes that the EU’s sanctions are illegitimate and violate several principles of international law including that of non-intervention and sovereign equality. Furthermore, this paper finds that the far-reaching impacts of the sanctions have had negative ramifications for civil society and inadvertently violate the human rights of the Zimbabwean people–which are protected under international law through the Unilateral Declaration on Human Rights (UDHR) as well as those within the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). Although modestly successful in partially achieving some of their objectives, the sanctions impose a higher cost in contrast to any long or short-term benefits.