Legal: The Freezing of the Russian Central Bank's Assets

The freezing of the Russian Central Bank's (CBR) foreign currency reserves in the aftermath of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine has been unparalleled in terms of the amounts involved and the swiftness of its international coordination. Despite the scepticism in some quarters of unilateral sanctions writ large, the key issue under international law is the compatibility of such measures with state immunity. Specifically, two questions arise. The first one is whether the law of state immunity allows for executive, as opposed to judicial, freezing of central bank property. The second one is whether, even if such measures were otherwise in breach of international law, circumstances precluding wrongfulness nonetheless render them lawful. As this article shows, the answer to the first question is finely balanced, but it is virtually certain that the ongoing attachment of the CBR's assets constitutes lawful countermeasures.