The United Nations (UN) was created after World War II as an intergovernmental organisation of states. The constituent instrument that created the UN and gave the Security Council its enforcement powers (the UN Charter) reflects this state-centred focus. The collective security provisions that empower the Council to determine threats to the peace and decide what enforcement action to take were aimed at preventing inter-state war.1 Economic sanctions were conceived as political measures for disciplining recalcitrant states deemed threats to international peace and security. They offered a means of intervention 'between words and war'2 for the Council to 'deter individual states from taking matters into their own hands'.3 Because they are imposed under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, sanctions must be implemented by all states. This extraordinary power was to be limited to specific and concrete threats.4 When threats receded, the sanctions would be withdrawn