Sanctions, in law and legal definition, are penalties or other means of enforcement used to provide incentives for obedience with the law or other rules and regulations. Criminal sanctions can take the form of serious punishment, such as corporal or capital punishment, incarceration, or severe fines. Within the context of civil law, sanctions are usually monetary fines which are levied against a party to a lawsuit or to their attorney for violating rules of procedure, or for abusing the judicial process. The most severe sanction in a civil lawsuit is the involuntary dismissal, with prejudice, of a complaining party's cause of action, or of the responding party's answer. This has the effect of deciding the entire action against the sanctioned party without recourse, except to the degree that an appeal or trial de novo may be allowed because of reversible error. In international law, the United Nations Security Council may authorize international sanctions to maintain or restore international peace and security pursuant to article 41 of the United Nations Charter.
As a noun, the term is usually used in the plural form, even if it only refers to a single event: if a judge fines a party, it is not said that they imposed a sanction, but that they imposed sanctions.