The Role of Regional Actors in Shaping UN Sanctions Regimes

The principle of subsidiarity, though not formally enshrined in the UN Charter, is de facto promoted in resolution of conflicts at regional and local levels. Regional states and regional organisations do not only provide collective legitimacy to conflict resolution via the use of sanctions but also play key role in their implementation. In the academic literature neighbouring states of sanctions targets are confined to enablers of sanctions circumvention. In the context of the United Nations Security Council sanctions, their actorness is also sidelined by the big powers politics. This study examines cooperation strategies used by regional countries of sanctions targets to shape the sanctions adoption and conflict resolution more broadly, drawing on thematic analysis across 14 cases of the UN African sanctions cases between 1992-2025. The findings of the thematic analysis are triangulated with 13 qualitative interviews with UN staff conducted during field research in Geneva in July 2025 and online. The research will test what cooperation theory works in the context of the African regional cooperation strategies around sanctions and conflict resolution more broadly and whether the institutional factor – sub-regional organisations play a significant role in shaping their approach vis-à-vis conflict resolution and use of sanctions. The Angolan case study, analysed so far, demonstrated how peer pressure, institutional lobbying and regional leadership by the Organisation of the African Unity (OAU) bolstered UN Security Council Resolution 864 which sought not only to deprive UNITA of resources but also to send the signal to neighbouring states in the region to stop the export of arms and resources. The research illustrates that regional involvement and solidarity in the conflict through front-line states is also an attempt to decouple from regional leadership of post-apartheid South Africa and to halt its proxy war. Conceptually, this research situates regional agency as constitutive of multilateral security governance and invites to broaden the discussion on third countries’ role in sanctions beyond circumvention.