International Law and Economic Coercion:

Abstract

After numerous writings on the legal permissibility or impermissibility of the employment of the Arab oil weapon from October 1973 to March 1974 and the social consequences of the decision to employ economic coercion against numerous states, adequate attention has not yet been paid to three important aspects of law and fact: (1) A policy-oriented interpretation of Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter, (2) Production Cuts and Embargoes, and (3) Price Increases and War Aims. Confusion and even outright inaccuracy has flowed from the printed scratchings of scholars and advocates engaged in an incomplete reference to legal policies at stake and the many relevant features of context. Insufficient attention has also been paid to past trends in authoritative decision, conditioning factors and the effects of particular strategies of economic coercion upon all values in various interdetermined social processes.