Catching up with society - what, how, and why: the regulation of the UN Security Council's targeted sanctions

Professor Ryuichi Ida’s contributions in the study of international law have been guided by his underlying conviction that law, or more precisely, law-makers, will be catching up to a social change. For Professor Ida, the identity of "law" is the "substantive binding force". The substantive bindingness is sustained by social practice, deliberation, and understanding that a specific norm ought to be followed. In order not to lose its own identity, law cannot be distanced too much from social transitions. This chapter attempts to situate Professor Ida’s observations in the specific context of the UN Security Council’s targeted sanctions. This chapter analyses the following three inter-related questions: what transitions have international law and law-makers encountered in the context of the UN’s targeted sanctions, how international law has caught up with social transitions, and why it has done so.