Sanctions, export controls and investment restrictions were once treated as specialist tools of foreign policy and national security. Today, they are central instruments in the defence of the rules-based international order. Often described as forms of "economic statecraft", these measures allow states to project power, respond to crises and pursue political objectives without resorting to military force. But their use also raises difficult questions: how can these tools be deployed lawfully and with strategic coherence? How should like-minded states coordinate their approaches — and what does effective sanctions diplomacy look like when engaging third countries?

For decades, the United States has been the dominant practitioner of economic statecraft, with Australia, the EU and other like-minded democracies often relying on US leadership to defend shared interests and values. That era is over. Shifts in US foreign policy, growing geopolitical fragmentation and concerns about economic coercion have forced middle power democracies to reconsider how they use their own economic power, both individually and collectively.

This public lecture, delivered by Professor Thomas Biersteker will examine the new politics of economic statecraft and its implications for Australia, the EU and their partners. It will ask how sanctions can be used strategically, lawfully and in coordination with partners in a changing international order. The lecture will be followed by a panel discussion with leading experts from Australia, Canada, the UK, and the EU.

Program:

5.30pm: Welcome by Associate Professor Anton Moiseienko, ANU Law School.

5.35pm: Keynote address on the 'Future of International Sanctions' by Professor Thomas Biersteker, Graduate Institute Geneva.

6.00pm: Panel discussion facilitated by A/Prof Moiseienko and featuring:

Tom Keatinge, Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), UK;
Professor Christian Leuprecht, Queen's University Canada;
Professor Clara Portela, University of Valencia, Spain;
Claudine Lamond, Grant Thornthon, Australia.

7.00pm: Drinks reception.

About the Keynote Speaker

Thomas Biersteker is the Gasteyger Professor Honoraire in International Relations and Political Science at the Graduate Institute, Geneva. His research focuses on international relations, global governance and international sanctions. He is the principal developer of SanctionsApp, an interactive tool for the design and analysis of UN targeted sanctions, and co-directed the Targeted Sanctions Consortium, a collaboration of more than fifty scholars and policy practitioners examining the impacts and effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions regimes.

About the Panel

Anton Moiseienko is Associate Professor of Law at the Australian National University Law School. His principal areas of expertise are financial crime — including money laundering, terrorist financing and proliferation financing — and the legal and policy dimensions of economic sanctions. He is the author of Doing Business with Criminals (Cambridge University Press, 2025) and Corruption and Targeted Sanctions (Brill, 2019), and is Lead Chief Investigator on an Australian Research Council-funded Discovery project on financial sanctions implementation.

Tom Keatinge is the founding Director of the Centre for Finance and Security at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), the UK's leading defence and security think tank. His research focuses on the intersection of finance and security, spanning sanctions effectiveness, terrorist and proliferation financing, the financial dimensions of state threats and new approaches to tackling financial crime. Prior to joining RUSI in 2014, he spent twenty years as an investment banker at J.P. Morgan.

Christian Leuprecht is the Director of the Institute of Intergovernmental Relations in the School of Policy Studies at Queen's University. He is also a Distinguished Professor at the Royal Military College of Canada and Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Military Journal. His research spans national security, intelligence, financial and economic crime, and transatlantic defence relations.

Clara Portela is Professor of Political Science at the Law School of the University of Valencia. She has previously served as a professor at Singapore Management University and as a research fellow at the European Union Institute for Security Studies in Paris. Her research focuses on multilateral sanctions, arms control and EU foreign policy, and she is the recipient of the THESEUS Award for Promising Research on European Integration.

Claudine Lamond is Senior Manager in Grant Thornton's Risk Consulting Practice specialising in AML/CTF risk management and compliance. She was previously Director in the Australian Sanctions Office, Compliance and Outreach.

This event is hosted by the ANU College of Law, Governance and Policy, with support from the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, Germany and the Australian Research Council Discovery Project scheme.

Additional information

Registration is required for this event.

Please direct any queries about the event to jake.fitzgerald@anu.edu.au.

If you require accessibility accommodations or a visitor Personal Emergency Evacuation Plan please email marketing.CLGP@anu.edu.au.

Accessible parking spaces are available around campus should you require them.

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