The relevance between countermeasures and responsibility of states under international law

In this article the author discusses the application of counter measures as a special form of response of the injured states to the wrongful acts of another. The author focuses on the delimitation of the definition of “countermeasures†from the definition “international sanctions†that are imposed at the level of the collective security mechanism of the UN and are measures of international legal responsibility.Their basis should be the guilty (as a rule) and illegal, recognized as such by the international community, act of the state, held responsible. “Sectoral†and other sanctions of the US, EU and some else states against Russia (for the so-called “illegal annexation of Crimea†and“destabilizing the situation in Ukraine†) have neither reason nor appropriate formalization. They are legally accepted by Russian Federation as the aggressive behavior of a group of states, that actualizes Russia’s imposing of countermeasures, better known as “anti-sanctions†.