Amir M. Sayem
Economic sanctions, which are usually imposed on states, business organizations and individuals as a penalty, are a common phenomenon in the world. Indeed, to change undesired behaviors in political, economic, human rights and other spheres, the United Nations and different powerful states impose economic sanctions, which range from minor to major forms in-cluding freezing of international bank deposits, barring of investments and embargo. For nuclear non-proliferation, improvement of human rights situations, promotion of democracy and some other purposes, hundreds of economic sanctions that last for months to years have thus far been imposed on different states. Yet, a relevant question remains on how much impositions of economic sanctions are significant.
Of course, economic sanctions, which are also rendered as a tool of foreign policy of powerful countries, are not new at all. In actual fact, such sanctions were given by the League of Nations in 1935 against Mussolini’s Italy over its petroleum supply, though it was lifted in 1936. But economic sanctions are on the rise after the World War II; since the early 1990s, the UN, the US, the EU and some other developed economies including Russia and China have employed unilateral and/or multi-lateral sanctions on countless situations — more than 500 times. Currently, economic sanctions are indeed widespread in the world but some are imposed as a retaliatory measure. Of different countries, the USA imposes economic sanctions more compared to any other country.
But disagreements clearly exist on the significance of economic sanctions, which are also rendered as an alternative weapon to military intervention to achieve desired outcomes. Proponents usually argue that economic sanctions are just as these bring about desired changes in harmful behaviors and contribute to global and national peace and security. On the contrary, as opponents frequently argue, economic sanctions that are used to enforce law are themselves outside of the law and opp-osite to the right to development. Claiming economic sanctions as unfair, opponents also say that these are sometimes imposed for the materialization of national interests of powerful states in the name of correcting behaviours of targeting countries that do not abide by powerful states.
Of course, it is not that economic sanctions have not made some desired changes. In fact, sanctions improved human rights situations and brought some other desired changes in some countries. But economic sanctions have failed to bring out desired behavioural changes in target countries on many occasions. Based on their study, scholars of economic sanctions such as Hufbauer, Schott and Elliot claim that only one third of economic sanctions are effective. But there is a disagreement with such a claim; in fact, another scholar named Robert Pape claims that only four percent economic sanctions are successful. Usually, shorter sanctions are more successful in changing behaviors than longer ones. Additionally, multi-lateral sanctions are more successful compared to unilateral ones.
But it is undeniable that economic sanctions bring about enormous negative economic impacts on targeted countries. According to Neuenkirc and Neum-eier, the US and UN economic sanctions affected the target country’s economy by reducing GDP grow-th by more than two percent a year. As is criticized, negative impacts brought by economic sanctions may sometimes last for a decade with further decline in the target country’s GDP per capita of 25.5 percent and can take several years to more than a decade to recover. Besides, sanctions affect the imposing country and bring collateral damage to countries that are trading partners of targeted countries to some degree. Indeed, the imposing and partner countries sometimes lose export markets, government revenues and investment opportunities.
Of course, economic sanctions can negatively influence political behaviors — instead of resulting in desired changes — through the reduction of political freedom and increase of repression on some occasions, even if these aim at promoting political liberalization and respect for human rights. This is mainly because such sanctions augment the regime’s coercive capacity and motivate the regime’s leadership to commit political repression to stay in power or to fight off increased political opposition. As is criticized, economic sanctions worsened respect for physical integrity rights such as freedom from disappearances, extra-judicial killings, torture and political imprisonment in some targeted countries. But, of course, extensive sanctions are more detrimental to human rights than partial ones.
Moreover, economic sanctions cause enormous impacts on ordinary citizens. Mass people including elderly and children of targeting countries mostly suffer in economic and other terms owing to economic slowdown and increased political repression driven by large-scale sanctions. Since politically and economically privileged groups can unevenly use public and private resources in their favor, poor people — as opposed to targeted elites — bear the brunt in most of the cases. As is criticized, tough nation-wide sanctions on Iraq that resulted in malnutrition and prolonged sufferings of children, a shortage of medical supplies and a scarcity of clean water led to one of the most severe humanitarian crises in modern history.
Under such circumstances, extant policy on and practices of economic sanctions deserve to be revised for the minimization of unintended impacts and the protection of the right to development. International organizations and powerful states — especially which impose coercive economic sanctions — have some undeniable roles to play. In my opinion, broad-based economic sanctions should be avoided all in all. Economic sanctions should only be imposed when there is no alternative. But it should simultaneously be ensured that economic sanctions are not given merely for the realization of national interests in the name of correcting behaviors of states or individuals, do not affect mass people in negative sense and do not hinder development of any country.
Provided that economic sanctions are once in a while important for and can be effective in making desired changes in extremely undesired and harmful behaviors, conditional engagement — usually rendered as a mix of narrow sanctions and political and economic interactions that are limited and made conditional on specified behavioral changes — may be increasingly taken into account by sanctions imposing international organizations and resourceful countries. This approach that can be effective in bringing about changes in genuinely detrimental behaviors at least in some contexts has potential to reduce large-scale economic burdens on a society. But, at the same time, effective alternatives to economic sanctions need to be identified.
