Regional organisations, sanctions and legitimacy

In the global sanctions landscape, regional organisations find themselves in a peculiar situation. Most regional organisations are composed of states from the Global South which have traditionally positioned themselves as protective of state sovereignty. Yet, may of them have often imposed sanctions against their own members in response to major breaches of international norms, often coupled with disruptions of regional stability, as well as called for the imposition of sanctions by the United Nations Security Council. This results in a potentially contradictory practice, prevalent in Africa and Latin America. How do states justify the use of a tool like sanctions, largely demonised by the Global South in international fora? This paper contrasts the legitimation of sanctions imposition by various regional organisations, and examines how their use is reconciled with the norms and values that Global South countries denounced as incompatible with sanctions as a tool of international coercion. WIth the help of text analysis, it dissects explanations of vote and interventions in debates at the UN General Assembly and the Security Council. An attempt is made at linking justifications for sanctions with theories about the role of legitimacy in international and regional politics.