Introduction

The February 2022 invasion of Ukraine triggered an impressive wave of sanctions against the Russian Federation. However, restrictive measures have been imposed by only a limited number of states, mostly from the Western world and G7 associated countries from Asia such as Japan, South Korea, and Singapore. Most states have decided not to adopt sanctions, and despite their support for resolutions criticizing the Russian invasion in the United Nations General Assembly, the decision not to adopt sanctions has been often interpreted as either indifference or a sign of implicit support for Russia. The lack of a global front on sanctions, what would then be truly multilateral sanctions, universal in their application (like UN Security Council sanctions), has been explained in the literature mostly by claiming that states lack political will to sanction or wish to remain neutral to the extent possible (see Milliband, 2023). But how do states explain and justify their “lack of will” or their efforts to remain “neutral?” How and why do governments, as well as citizens and the private sector, interpret and challenge sanctions and their application? This introduction intends to contribute to this discussion by investigating contestations of norms with regard to international sanctions. States have frequently contested the norms, rules and procedures governing the global sanction regime, thus affecting the process of adoption and implementation of this policy tool. In this way states have subjected sanctions to processes of interpretation, appropriation, resistance, and change.