Abstract
Nowadays and concretely after the end of Cold War, it is quite visible that the activity of the Security Council is showing a variation to the traditional conception of the international system, as the increase of actions starting from the invocation of Chapter VII of the Charter of the United nations was accompanied by new controversial outcomes. This paper intends to describe several legal issues related to the imposition of economic sanctions by the Security Council, in order to show that even if it appears that such organ of the United Nations has a wide margin of appreciation when maintaining international peace and security, there are some limits arisen from the Charter of the United Nations –assumed here as a constitutional device-, but also from other branches of International Law, conceived nowadays as relevant for the protection of individuals from the adverse effects of these measures.