ABSTRACT
Economic sanctions are a tool of unquestioned legality in the arsenal of state craft when applied directly by an initiating state against a target state. Since the end of the Second World War, the United States has been the most prominent practitioner of peace-time restrictions upon trade and other economic transactions. The Trading with the Enemy Act empowered the President in time of war or declared national emergency to regulate or prohibit all commercial or financial transactions by Americans with certain foreign countries. In 1963, the two-year-old US trade embargo of Cuba was brought under the authority of the Trading with the Enemy Act. The list of 'enemy' countries proscribed under the Foreign Assets Control Regulations has undergone change over the years. Control over the re-export of goods and technology of US origin are authorised under the Export Administration Act of 1979, which is the successor to the Export Control Act of 1947.
