The legality of seizing Russian Central Bank assets

1. Problem framing and factual map: what is being “seized”

The legality of seizing Russian Central Bank assets turns first on precision about the object and mechanism of the proposed measure. Public debate often collapses distinct legal acts into one word—“seizure”—but international law treats immobilisation, appropriation of income, and confiscation of principal as different interventions with different legal triggers and constraints (European Parliamentary Research Service, 2025; UK House of Commons Library, 2024).

1.1 Core question and the basic taxonomy

The starting point is a three-part distinction.

Freeze/immobilisation: measures that prohibit transactions and block movement while leaving ownership formally unchanged. In EU practice, this has meant banning transactions relating to the management of the Central Bank of Russia’s reserves and assets within EU jurisdiction, effectively immobilising the portfolio (European Parliamentary Research Service, 2025).

Use of returns generated during immobilisation: the cash balances and interest flows that accumulate because coupons, redemptions, and other payments cannot be transmitted to sanctioned holders. This is the legal basis for the EU’s policy move toward capturing “extraordinary revenues” produced by immobilised reserves held by central securities depositories (CSDs) (Council of the European Union, 2024; European Commission, 2024).

Confiscation (principal): permanent deprivation—transfer of title or equivalent legal effect—so that the underlying reserve assets cease to belong to the Russian state/central bank. This is the hardest case because it most closely resembles enforcement against sovereign property and therefore engages the strictest immunity and state-responsibility constraints (European Parliamentary Research Service, 2025; UK House of Commons Library, 2024).

1.2 Where the assets are and why “form” matters

Most EU-jurisdiction reserves have been held through market infrastructures rather than as vault cash. A large share is administered via Euroclear (Belgium) and a smaller share via Clearstream (Luxembourg) (European Parliamentary Research Service, 2025). This architecture matters because it transforms the issue from a simple “take the money” story into a problem of intermediated securities: debt instruments mature, coupons accrue, and settlement systems create large blocked cash pools.

A practical example: if a Russian sovereign bond held in a CSD matures, the redemption amount may be credited into a blocked account, expanding the cash position sitting on the CSD’s balance sheet. Over time, this can shift the frozen portfolio’s risk profile and generate sizeable interest income on accumulating balances, which is precisely what enabled the EU’s “extraordinary revenues” approach (Council of the European Union, 2024; Euroclear, 2025).

Transparency is a recurring problem. Estimates converge around roughly €210 billion immobilised under EU jurisdiction and about €260–300 billion worldwide, but public figures remain incomplete and uneven across jurisdictions (European Parliamentary Research Service, 2025).

1.3 The “middle path” already implemented

Current practice largely avoids confiscating principal and instead operationalises support to Ukraine via extraordinary revenues and financing structures that rely on those revenues. The EU has legally separated the accounting of extraordinary cash balances and related revenues for large CSD holdings, and has already transferred proceeds for Ukraine-related purposes (Council of the European Union, 2024; European Commission, 2024). The G7’s Extraordinary Revenue Acceleration approach similarly relies on future extraordinary revenues to service and repay Ukraine-support loans, rather than immediately taking principal (G7, 2024).

2. Baseline international law: the default rule is “no”

The baseline position of public international law is restrictive: seizing the principal of foreign central bank assets is presumptively unlawful. This conclusion does not depend on sympathy for Russia’s conduct, but on structural rules designed to protect sovereign equality, monetary stability, and the predictability of international financial relations. Any departure from this baseline must therefore be justified as an exception, not treated as a natural consequence of wrongdoing.

2.1 Sovereign equality and the dual structure of state immunity

State immunity operates on two analytically distinct levels. Jurisdictional immunity bars domestic courts from adjudicating claims against a foreign state without consent. Immunity from enforcement (or execution) goes further and protects state property from measures of constraint even where a court has jurisdiction or a judgment exists. In practice, immunity from enforcement is broader and more resistant to exceptions than jurisdictional immunity (Fox and Webb, 2015; UK House of Commons Library, 2024).

This distinction is decisive. Even if a state legislates to permit courts to hear claims linked to Russia’s internationally wrongful acts, attaching or confiscating Russian state property remains a separate legal hurdle. International practice consistently treats enforcement immunity as a rule of customary international law, grounded in the principle of sovereign equality reflected in Article 2(1) of the UN Charter (International Court of Justice, 2012).

2.2 Central bank assets as a protected category

Within the law of state immunity, central bank and monetary authority assets enjoy heightened protection. Domestic statutes, judicial decisions, and international instruments converge on the view that reserves used for monetary and exchange-rate functions are not subject to enforcement, even when other categories of state property might be (Fox and Webb, 2015; European Parliamentary Research Service, 2025).

This position is reflected, for example, in the UN Convention on Jurisdictional Immunities of States and Their Property, which—although not universally in force—codifies a widely accepted norm that property of a central bank or other monetary authority “shall not be considered as property specifically in use or intended for use by the State for other than government non-commercial purposes” (UN General Assembly, 2004). Courts in multiple jurisdictions have treated this provision as declaratory of customary law rather than aspirational text (Fox and Webb, 2015).

The rationale is functional rather than moral. Central bank reserves underpin currency stability, payment systems, and international confidence in reserve holdings. Allowing their confiscation as a response to disputes would introduce systemic risk far beyond the immediate case. This concern explains why immunity remains robust even in politically charged contexts (European Parliamentary Research Service, 2025).

2.3 Freezing versus confiscation under immunity doctrine

The distinction between freezing and confiscation is legally significant. Freezing measures typically restrict the use, transfer, or management of assets without altering legal title. Because such measures can be framed as regulatory acts of the forum state rather than judicial enforcement, they have often been treated as falling outside classic enforcement-immunity doctrine, particularly when adopted by the executive under sanctions regimes (UK House of Commons Library, 2024).

Confiscation of principal is different. Permanent deprivation of ownership closely resembles a measure of execution and therefore triggers immunity from enforcement. International law has not accepted a general exception allowing confiscation of central bank reserves as a response to serious breaches of international law. The absence of consistent state practice supporting such an exception is a critical point: condemnation of conduct does not, by itself, dissolve immunity protections (International Court of Justice, 2012; EPRS, 2025).

2.4 Non-intervention and economic coercion constraints

Beyond immunity, the principle of non-intervention limits coercive measures that interfere with a state’s sovereign prerogatives in its economic and financial affairs. While sanctions and asset freezes are widely practiced, confiscation of sovereign monetary reserves pushes closer to prohibited interference, particularly when undertaken unilaterally and outside a collective security framework (UK House of Commons Library, 2024).

This does not mean all economic measures are unlawful. It means that measures amounting to permanent deprivation of core sovereign assets require a strong and specific legal justification. Absent such justification, confiscation risks violating both immunity rules and the broader prohibition on coercive interference in matters reserved to state sovereignty (European Parliamentary Research Service, 2025).

2.5 The baseline conclusion

Taken together, sovereign equality, immunity from enforcement, and the special status of central bank assets produce a clear default position: international law does not permit the confiscation of foreign central bank reserves as a matter of course, even in response to grave international wrongdoing. Any attempt to seize Russian Central Bank assets must therefore overcome this baseline through narrowly defined exceptions grounded in the law of state responsibility or collective security. The burden of legal justification lies entirely with those proposing departure from the rule, not with those invoking it.

3. Potential legal bases to overcome the default rule

Overcoming the baseline prohibition on confiscating foreign central bank assets requires reliance on exceptional doctrines, not creative relabeling. Three legal pathways are most frequently advanced: countermeasures under the law of state responsibility; collective responses to breaches of obligations owed to the international community; and security-based or institutional arguments. Each offers partial traction and significant constraints.

3.1 Countermeasures under the law of state responsibility

The most developed legal pathway is countermeasures as articulated in customary international law and reflected in the Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts (ARSIWA). Countermeasures permit a state injured by an internationally wrongful act to temporarily suspend its own obligations toward the responsible state to induce compliance, cessation, and reparation (International Law Commission, 2001).

Strict conditions apply. Countermeasures must be proportionate, reversible, and aimed at inducing compliance, not punishment. They must also respect peremptory norms and certain protected obligations. These conditions are decisive for central bank assets. A freeze or immobilisation can plausibly be framed as reversible, since the title remains unchanged and assets could be released upon compliance. Confiscation of principal, by contrast, is inherently irreversible and therefore sits uneasily with the countermeasures framework (European Parliamentary Research Service, 2025).

A concrete example illustrates the difference. Immobilising Russian reserves held in a central securities depository restricts Russia’s ability to use those assets while preserving the option of release if a lawful settlement is reached. Transferring ownership of those reserves to another state or fund extinguishes that option. Proponents attempt to mitigate this problem by proposing escrow mechanisms or conditional transfers with reversion clauses, but these designs have not yet consolidated into accepted state practice (UK House of Commons Library, 2024).

A further limitation is standing. Under orthodox doctrine, only an injured state may take countermeasures. Ukraine clearly qualifies; most reserve-holding states do not. This pushes the analysis toward more contested ground.

3.2 Collective countermeasures and obligations erga omnes

To justify action by non-injured states, advocates invoke the concept of collective countermeasures responding to breaches of obligations owed to the international community as a whole. Russia’s aggression against Ukraine is widely characterised as a serious breach of peremptory norms, including the prohibition on the use of force. This supports the argument that all states have a legal interest in responding (International Law Commission, 2001; Crawford, 2013).

The difficulty lies in translation from principle to enforcement. ARSIWA deliberately avoids confirming a right of non-injured states to take countermeasures involving property deprivation. State practice remains cautious and fragmented. Measures adopted by third states have overwhelmingly taken the form of sanctions and asset freezes, not confiscation of sovereign reserves (European Parliamentary Research Service, 2025).

This gap matters. Without consistent and representative practice accompanied by a sense of legal entitlement, collective confiscation risks being viewed as progressive development rather than existing law. That distinction does not invalidate the proposal, but it weakens claims that confiscation is already lawful under customary international law.

3.3 Security-based and institutional arguments

A third line of argument seeks to anchor confiscation in broader security frameworks.

One variant relies on the authority of the United Nations system. General Assembly resolutions have repeatedly affirmed Russia’s responsibility for internationally wrongful acts and the duty to provide reparation. These resolutions carry significant normative weight but do not create binding enforcement powers over sovereign assets. In the absence of Security Council authorisation, they cannot by themselves override immunity from enforcement (European Parliamentary Research Service, 2025).

Another variant frames confiscation as a non-forcible measure linked to collective self-defence or the maintenance of international peace and security. The problem is not conceptual plausibility but legal precision. Self-defence doctrine is designed for necessity and immediacy; extending it to permanent economic deprivation risks doctrinal overreach and has not been accepted in judicial or consistent state practice (UK House of Commons Library, 2024).

3.4 Using revenues rather than principal: a partial workaround

A more modest approach seeks to avoid the hardest immunity barrier by targeting returns generated during immobilisation rather than the underlying reserves. The legal theory is that extraordinary revenues accruing because assets are immobilised are not themselves central bank reserves in use for monetary policy, and therefore fall outside the core of enforcement immunity (European Parliamentary Research Service, 2025).

This approach has been operationalised in the European Union and endorsed politically by the G7. It does not claim to defeat the default rule on principal confiscation. Instead, it narrows the object of intervention to a category of assets whose legal character is arguably distinct. The strength of this approach lies in risk management rather than doctrinal ambition. It accepts the limits of current law while extracting some value for reparative purposes.

3.5 Interim assessment

None of the proposed legal bases cleanly authorises the confiscation of the Russian Central Bank principal under existing law. Countermeasures offer the strongest doctrinal structure but struggle with irreversibility and standing. Collective countermeasures remain legally underdeveloped. Security-based arguments lack clear limits. As a result, current practice gravitates toward revenue-based and conditional models, not because they fully resolve the legality question, but because they minimise exposure to the most entrenched rules of international law.

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4. The menu of “seizure” models in practice

Debates over the legality of seizing Russian Central Bank assets often obscure a practical reality: states are not choosing between action and inaction, but among distinct operational models, each calibrated to manage different legal risks. These models vary in how directly they confront sovereign immunity, how reversible they are, and how much value they can realistically mobilise for Ukraine.

4.1 Model A — Immobilisation with the use of extraordinary revenues

The most conservative and currently implemented model preserves the principle of central bank reserves while redirecting the extraordinary revenues generated during immobilisation. When reserves held through financial market infrastructures mature or generate interest, blocked cash balances accumulate. These balances can be reinvested, producing income that did not exist prior to sanctions.

The legal logic is narrow. While the underlying reserves remain protected as central bank assets, the additional revenues are characterised as windfall gains arising from regulatory immobilisation rather than as assets actively deployed for monetary policy. On this view, enforcement immunity attaches to the principal but not necessarily to the revenue stream (European Parliamentary Research Service, 2025).

The European Union has operationalised this model by requiring large central securities depositories to segregate extraordinary revenues and transfer them for Ukraine-related purposes. The G7 has relied on the same revenue stream to underpin financing mechanisms without transferring ownership of the principal. This approach deliberately avoids a frontal challenge to immunity doctrine. Its weakness is quantitative: revenues are significant but still far smaller than Ukraine’s estimated reconstruction needs (European Commission, 2024; UK House of Commons Library, 2024).

4.2 Model B — Leveraging reserves without transferring title

A second model seeks to monetise the value of immobilised reserves without confiscation by using them as a basis for loans, guarantees, or advance financing. The reserves remain frozen, but future revenues or conditional claims linked to the principal are used to secure funding for Ukraine.

Legally, this model attempts to preserve formal ownership while extracting economic value. Its proponents argue that as long as the title remains with the Russian state and release remains theoretically possible, the measure resembles a sophisticated form of immobilisation rather than enforcement (European Parliamentary Research Service, 2025).

The difficulty lies in durability. Long-dated loans or guarantees tied to immobilised reserves may, in substance, replicate the effects of confiscation. The longer the immobilisation lasts and the more exhaustively the value is extracted, the harder it becomes to maintain the claim of reversibility. Courts assessing substance over form could view such arrangements as indirect enforcement against immune property (Fox and Webb, 2015).

4.3 Model C — Domestic confiscation of principal by legislation

The most direct model authorises confiscation of the central bank principal through domestic legislation. This approach has been debated and partially legislated in some jurisdictions, notably the United States, where Congress has explored statutory pathways to seize Russian sovereign assets and allocate them for Ukraine-related purposes (UK House of Commons Library, 2024).

From an international law perspective, domestic legislation does not dissolve immunity. A state may change its internal law, but it cannot unilaterally alter customary international obligations owed to other states. Confiscation authorised by statute, therefore, shifts the dispute into the realm of international responsibility, exposing the confiscating state to countermeasures, claims, and reputational costs (European Parliamentary Research Service, 2025).

This model offers speed and clarity but carries the highest systemic risk. It directly undermines the expectation that central bank reserves are insulated from enforcement, raising concerns about precedent for reserve safety globally.

4.4 Model D — Enforcement through international judgments

Another proposed pathway links confiscation to international adjudication, particularly judgments establishing Russia’s obligation to provide reparation. The argument is that assets should be seized not as sanctions but as enforcement of a legal duty confirmed by an international court.

In practice, this route faces two obstacles. First, jurisdictional barriers limit the availability of binding judgments directly ordering reparations payable through asset seizure. Second, even where a judgment exists, immunity from enforcement remains a separate barrier. Recognition of an international judgment does not automatically authorise attachment of central bank property (European Parliamentary Research Service, 2025).

Some proposals seek to bypass this by streamlining domestic recognition of international decisions or by treating certain judgments as self-executing. These strategies reduce procedural friction but do not eliminate the underlying immunity problem.

4.5 Model E — Hybrid and incremental approaches

Several states have adopted hybrid models combining elements of the approaches above: long-term immobilisation, revenue extraction, conditional pledges, and legislative preparation for possible future confiscation. The logic is incrementalism. By escalating gradually, states preserve flexibility and monitor legal and political fallout before committing to irreversible steps.

This approach reflects a sober assessment of risk. No single model fully resolves the tension between accountability and immunity. Incremental strategies seek to maximise support for Ukraine while keeping exposure to adverse legal consequences within politically manageable bounds (European Parliamentary Research Service, 2025).

4.6 Comparative assessment

Across these models, a clear pattern emerges. The closer a measure comes to permanent deprivation of principal, the weaker its grounding in existing international law and the higher its systemic cost. Revenue-based and leverage models dominate current practice not because they are ideal, but because they fit most comfortably within the constraints imposed by sovereign equality and state immunity.

5. Domestic and regional constraints that decide outcomes

Even if a plausible international-law justification were identified, the legality of seizing Russian Central Bank assets ultimately depends on domestic and regional legal constraints. These constraints are not secondary or technical. They determine whether proposed measures can be implemented, sustained under judicial scrutiny, and coordinated across jurisdictions where the assets are actually located.

5.1 Domestic constitutional and rule-of-law constraints

At the domestic level, confiscation of sovereign assets engages constitutional guarantees of property, legality, and due process. In many jurisdictions, permanent deprivation of property—particularly where ownership is transferred to the state or third parties—requires a clear legal basis, proportionality, and access to judicial review (Fox and Webb, 2015; UK House of Commons Library, 2024).

Central bank assets raise an additional issue: they are not ordinary state property but are often held through financial market infrastructures subject to regulatory law. Measures compelling private intermediaries to transfer ownership or value may expose states to constitutional claims by those intermediaries, including claims based on legal certainty and protection of legitimate expectations (European Parliamentary Research Service, 2025).

A practical illustration is instructive. Immobilisation measures have generally survived domestic review because they are framed as temporary regulatory controls adopted under sanctions law. Confiscation statutes would be scrutinised more closely, particularly if drafted broadly or retroactively. Courts may assess not only international legality but also whether the legislature has adequately justified interference with property rights under domestic constitutional standards.

5.2 Allocation of legal risk within the European Union

Within the European Union, competence allocation and risk distribution are decisive. Restrictive measures are adopted at the EU level, but enforcement and liability often fall on Member States or regulated entities such as central securities depositories. This creates a structural hesitation: if confiscation were later found unlawful, who bears responsibility for compensation—the Union, the Member State, or the intermediary?

This concern explains the EU’s preference for the extraordinary revenues model. By avoiding transfer of principal, the EU reduces exposure to claims based on state immunity, investment protection, or unlawful taking (European Parliamentary Research Service, 2025). It also preserves unity. Measures that require unanimity for renewal incentivise designs that minimise legal and political friction among Member States with different constitutional traditions and risk tolerance.

5.3 Judicial pathways and enforcement bottlenecks

Domestic courts remain unavoidable gatekeepers. Even where legislation authorises seizure, courts may be asked to determine whether specific assets are immune, whether statutory conditions are met, and whether international obligations have been respected. Litigation risk is therefore not hypothetical; it is built into the system.

This is particularly acute for proposals linking confiscation to international judgments, such as decisions of the European Court of Human Rights. Recognition of such judgments does not automatically override immunity from enforcement. Domestic courts may accept the binding nature of the judgment while still refusing attachment of central bank property, producing a legal stalemate rather than execution (European Parliamentary Research Service, 2025).

5.4 Regional coordination and forum dependence

Outcomes are also shaped by forum dependence. The legal feasibility of seizure varies by jurisdiction depending on statutory frameworks, constitutional law, and judicial attitudes to immunity. Fragmented implementation risks asset flight, regulatory arbitrage, and inconsistent outcomes across reserve-holding states.

This explains why coordinated regional approaches are favoured over unilateral action. Coordination does not eliminate legal constraints, but it reduces the risk that one jurisdiction becomes an outlier bearing disproportionate legal and reputational costs. The EU and G7 emphasis on harmonised approaches reflects an appreciation that legitimacy in this area is as much institutional as doctrinal (UK House of Commons Library, 2024).

5.5 Decisive constraint: sustainability, not symbolism

Domestic and regional constraints force a pragmatic question: can a measure survive judicial review, political change, and long-term administration? Symbolic legality arguments collapse if domestic courts block execution or if regional coordination fails. For this reason, current practice favours legally conservative designs that can endure scrutiny rather than maximalist solutions that risk collapse at the implementation stage.

6. What is most legally defensible now, and what would change the answer

At present, the legality of seizing Russian Central Bank assets is constrained by hard limits embedded in the structure of public international law. The most legally defensible approach today is not confiscation of principal, but a calibrated framework built on three elements: (i) continued immobilisation of reserves, (ii) use of extraordinary revenues generated during that immobilisation, and (iii) conditional financial mechanisms that preserve formal ownership and theoretical reversibility.

This position is defensible because it aligns with existing doctrine rather than testing its breaking point. Immunity from enforcement remains a robust rule of customary international law, and central bank assets sit at its core. Measures that permanently deprive a foreign monetary authority of its reserves still lack a settled exception, even in response to egregious violations of the prohibition on the use of force. By contrast, immobilisation coupled with revenue extraction can plausibly be characterised as a reversible regulatory response and therefore fitted—imperfectly but credibly—within the law of countermeasures (European Parliamentary Research Service, 2025; International Law Commission, 2001).

This is not merely doctrinal conservatism. It reflects a systemic judgment. Central bank reserves operate as confidence goods in the international financial system. Once the principle that such assets are immune from enforcement is decisively breached, the effects are unlikely to remain confined to the Russian case. The current revenue-based model consciously trades maximal reparative ambition for legal sustainability and institutional stability (UK House of Commons Library, 2024).

What, then, would change the legal answer?

First, treaty-based multilateralisation could recalibrate the rules. A dedicated agreement among a critical mass of reserve-holding states could lawfully narrow immunity protections in this specific context, define conditions for transfer of principal, and establish a collective compensation mechanism. Such a treaty would not retroactively alter customary law, but it would create a new consent-based legal regime among its parties (Crawford, 2013).

Second, authoritative adjudication linked to enforcement design would matter. A binding international determination of Russia’s duty to make reparation, combined with a collectively endorsed enforcement mechanism that explicitly addresses immunity, would significantly strengthen the legal case. Judgments alone are insufficient; enforcement architecture is decisive (European Parliamentary Research Service, 2025).

Third, customary law evolution through consistent and representative practice could shift the baseline. If a broad coalition of states were to confiscate central bank principal under a shared legal rationale, accompanied by explicit opinio juris that immunity yields in cases of serious breaches of peremptory norms, the default rule could change. Current practice does not meet that threshold.

Until one of these developments occurs, confiscation of the Russian Central Bank principal remains legally vulnerable. Revenue-based and conditional models are not elegant solutions, but they are the only ones that presently sit on defensible legal ground without undermining the structural coherence of international law itself.

References

1. Council of the European Union (2024). Immobilised Russian assets: Council decides to set aside extraordinary revenues. Council press release, February.

2. Crawford, J. (2013). State Responsibility: The General Part. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

3. European Commission (2024.) Questions and answers on the first transfer of proceeds from immobilised Russian assets for Ukraine. Brussels.

4. European Parliamentary Research Service (2025). Confiscation of immobilised Russian sovereign assets: State of play, arguments and scenarios. PE 775.908. Brussels: European Parliament.

5. Euroclear (2025) Annual results and financial disclosures relating to immobilised Russian assets. Brussels.

6. Fox, H. and Webb, P. (2015). The Law of State Immunity. 3rd edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

7. G7 (2024) G7 Leaders’ Statement on Extraordinary Revenue Acceleration (ERA) loans for Ukraine. Official communiqué.

8. International Court of Justice (2012) Jurisdictional Immunities of the State (Germany v Italy: Greece intervening), Judgment, ICJ Reports 2012.

9. International Law Commission (2001) Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts, with commentaries. Yearbook of the International Law Commission, Vol. II, Part Two. New York: United Nations.

10. United Nations General Assembly (2004) United Nations Convention on Jurisdictional Immunities of States and Their Property. A/RES/59/38.

11. UK House of Commons Library (2024) Sanctions, international law and seizing Russian assets. Research Briefing. London: House of Commons.