This work considers the problems arising in implementing prohibitions in international relations, identifies the main aspects of legal and social nature preventing generation of effective mechanism for implementation of prohibitions in international relations, and formulates possible ways of eliminating them.

The analysis of the international legal norms of institutionalizing prohibitions and practices of their implementation revealed that an effective implementation of prohibitions is often associated with the need to amend national legislation, as well as with the presence of domestic legal norms that make it possible to apply directly the norms of international law on the territory of the state, or to apply them jointly with the norms of the national law.

The absence of a universal international instrument governing the responsibility of states for breaching legal prohibitions makes it difficult to implement these prohibitions and comply with them, although states may follow the rules of the “Draft articles on Responsibility of states for Internationally Wrongful Acts” as a document stating moral (political) prescriptions.

The main problems hindering the development of an effective mechanism for implementation of prohibitions were identified as follows: the absence of agreed international and domestic legal mechanisms for implementation of prohibitions; the reluctance of states to bear responsibilities; the attempts to mitigate the prosecution of citizens, especially officials; and failures to take adequate legal measures for resolving the problem.

The authors state the necessity of adopting documents that could regulate the issues of international legal responsibility, though in a unipolar world it is very problematic and can even aggravate the situation. The mechanism developed under such conditions can reflect the position of only one state and therefore can result in consolidating an undesirable hierarchy of states in international relations. An effective legal mechanism of responsibility for the violation of prohibitions in international relations can arise only in a multipolar world. It is also necessary to observe strictly the basic principles of international law, to strengthen international cooperation and improve the mechanisms of international legal regulation. These efforts also require the establishment of a multipolar world.