Sanctions

12 Key excerpts on "Sanctions"

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  The Economic Factor in International Relations

  A Brief Introduction

  • Spyros Economides, Peter Wilson(Authors)
  • 2001(Publication Date)
  • I.B. Tauris

    (Publisher)

  Within the parameters of this rational, com-mercial world economic Sanctions provide a more modern, and to some acceptable, instrument of foreign policy. Definitions Defining economic Sanctions is not the simple task that it may at first appear. They are generally held to be the imposition of economic penalties in an attempt to change the political behaviour of a ‘target’ state. They are thus political acts inasmuch as they utilise economic instruments of foreign policy to bring about a change in the internal or external policies of a state, or to undermine the authority and stability of its government. Their use is based on the assumption that there exists either a direct or an indirect relationship between economic activity and political behaviour, and that the authority and behaviour of a regime rests partly on economic foundations. Even though eco-nomic Sanctions may be conceived as a substitute for force, they are, nonetheless, coercive in intent and as a form of statecraft move beyond persuasion towards compulsion. They may be seen as an indication of the willingness on the part of the target state to use force, and thus can be interpreted as a prelude to war. But the imposition of economic Sanctions does not necessarily lead to a resort to arms. In essence, according to this generally held view, economic Sanctions are a non-military form of coercion in which economic measures are employed to achieve political ends by inflicting hardship. The problem with this definition is that, as we shall see, economic Sanctions are often imposed despite there being no serious expectation on the part of the ‘sender’ state that the behaviour of the target state will be thereby significantly changed. They are sometimes imposed for the secondary objective of appeasing domestic public opinion; of demonstrating to this or that domestic audience that ‘something is being done’.

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  Russia's Response to Sanctions

  How Western Economic Statecraft is Reshaping Political Economy in Russia

  • Richard Connolly(Author)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Cambridge University Press

    (Publisher)

  According to these two definitions, the instruments of Sanctions or economic statecraft can vary. Sanctions may be focused on preventing the flow of goods, services, or capital, or they may include prohibitions on travel. But they share in common a clear objective: to induce the leaders of a target state to change their policies. In this respect, Sanctions are political acts that utilize economic instruments to either effect a change in the domestic or foreign policy of the target state, or undermine and weaken the authority and effectiveness of its government. Thus, the use of Sanctions is based “on the assumption that there exists either a direct or an indirect relationship between economic activity and political behavior, and 1 Targets usually include states or organizations and individuals located within states. They may, however, also include nonstate actors. Understanding Sanctions 11 that the authority and behavior of a regime rests partly on economic foundations” (Economides and Wilson 2001, p. 142). This means that Sanctions – using the expanded range of instruments proposed by Brooks – are essentially “a non-military form of coercion in which economic meas- ures are employed to achieve political ends by inflicting hardship” (ibid). Defining Sanctions in this way seems straightforward. Economic instru- ments are used by states to impose economic pain on target states to achieve political objectives. The problem, however, is that Sanctions are often imposed without there being any serious expectation on the part of the sender state that the target state will modify its behavior (Jones and Portela 2014). Instead, several other objectives may motivate a sender state when choosing to impose Sanctions. James Barber identified three sets of objectives that motivate sender countries to impose Sanctions (Barber 1979). The first set – or the primary objectives – broadly approximates the straightforward definition of Sanctions outlined above.

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  Economic Sanctions

  International Policy and Political Economy at Work

  • R. Eyler(Author)
  • 2007(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  If Sanctions cause a currency crisis, directly or indirectly, such a crisis must affect the average citizen, and may spill over regionally. Sanctions are structured as if macroeconomic policies. Sanction Theory and Political Economy Reducing a nation’s wealth by policy driving higher prices and inter- est rates, lower income levels, and reduced productivity are all part of a sanction’s political economy. However, measuring sanction effects is difficult. Using historic case studies helps understand different con- texts and sanction characteristics, especially the multiple ways sanc- tions are influenced to begin, continue, and end. Sender nations initiate Sanctions because they perceive the benefits of target political change exceed the costs Sanctions guarantee to all parties. A policy’s efficacy, credibility, and forecasted damage should be tracked by senders to decide when policy should change or end. The political economy of economic statecraft is tracked by marginal movements toward the sanction’s goals. The following studies are examples of seminal sanction investigations concerned with political economy and linking basic theory to sanction effectiveness. Sanctions as Diplomatic Tools Statecraft is a word used to describe how nations engage in diplomacy. Using negotiations to settle international disputes is an evolving legacy for the United Nations. Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter, Article 41 in particular, calls for a specific approach to any threat to international peace. 12 Article 41 suggests that the United Nations must first curtail economic connections with rogue nations or a group of belligerents. Article 42 suggests that after economic Sanctions are determined not ECONOMIC Sanctions 22 to work, the need and magnitude of military action will then be discussed and potentially initiated. One can easily see the subtlety that ties Articles 41 and 42 together. The economic weapon is to be used before military force, if military force is debated at all.

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  European Union Sanctions and Foreign Policy

  When and Why do they Work?

  • Clara Portela(Author)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • Taylor & Francis

    (Publisher)

  Although the debate was confined to economic Sanctions, it offers useful insights for a definition of Sanctions as tools of influence. In the classical definition, Sanctions entail ‘the deliberate government-inspired withdrawal of... trade or financial relations [to obtain] foreign policy goals’ (Hufbauer et al. 1985:2). According to this formulation, two central definitional elements can be discerned in the concept of economic Sanctions: the coercive measure needs to be economic in nature and its aim needs to be political. This effectively excludes measures to attain economic policy goals. In his critique of Economic Sanctions Reconsidered, Pape specified this distinction in order to illustrate the difference between economic Sanctions and trade wars. According to this author, economic Sanctions ‘seek to lower the economic welfare of a target state by reducing international trade in order to coerce the target government to change its political behaviour’ (Pape 1997:93-94). By contrast, a trade war takes place ‘when a state threatens to inflict economic harm... in order to persuade the target state to agree to terms of trade more favourable to the coercing state’ (1997:94). In Pape’s view, trade wars and economic Sanctions should be studied separately, primarily because the basis of decision making by the target is different: States involved in trade disputes decide whether to make concessions depending on which choice they expect would maximise their wealth. Targets of economic Sanctions, on the other hand, understand that they would be better off economically if they conceded to the coercer’s demands, and make their decisions based on whether they consider their political objectives to be worth the economic costs. (Pape 1997:96) With this observation, Pape exposes the core difference between the target state’s compliance and non-compliance in both situations: decisions follow economics-based, as opposed to purely political, calculations

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  Collective Security

  Theory, Law and Practice

  • Nicholas Tsagourias, Nigel D. White(Authors)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Cambridge University Press

    (Publisher)

  10 Sanctions Introduction Collective Security institutions depend on having a range of measures at their disposal, from traditional diplomacy and peaceful settlement, to coercive non-forcible and forcible measures. This chapter is concerned with those non-forcible measures that are commonly known as sanc- tions. 1 Sanctions consist of a range of measures: from suspension and expulsion of member states of a CS institution, to financial and economic measures targeted at states, organisations and individuals. This chapter will focus on economic and financial Sanctions. Although coercive, such Sanctions are not generally meant to be punitive, since their purpose is to ‘exert sufficient pressure’ to induce the targets to change their existing behaviour or to prevent them from behaving in a certain way in the future. 2 Sanctions are an essential CS tool, but they also raise concerns about whether such measures can be both effective and legitimate. Effective Sanctions must impact on the target’s behaviour, but they must avoid any punitive consequences, particularly as regards states, groups and individuals who are not the intended targets. Sanctions thus present a further challenge to CS, to achieve its primary purpose of preserving the peace, while maintaining respect for the fundamental principles of international law in protecting states’ rights as well as group and individual rights. Nature and purposes of Sanctions Sanctions are central to any legal system. Kelsen argues that Sanctions are an inherent component of any legal order including one providing CS – ‘a social order guaranteeing collective security is by its very nature a 1 For analysis of international criminal tribunals as a form of non-forcible measure, see Chapters 13 and 17. 2 Schermers and Blokker, International Institutional Law, 913. 219 legal order, and a legal order is a system of norms providing for Sanctions’. 3 This reflects Kelsen’s understanding of law as a coercive order.

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  The New Sovereignty

  Compliance with International Regulatory Agreements

  • Abram Chayes, Antonia Handler Chayes(Authors)
  • 2009(Publication Date)
  • Harvard University Press

    (Publisher)

  Membership Sanctions / 87 4 Unilateral Sanctions Treaty-based Sanctions do not exhaust the possibilities for coercive action to induce treaty compliance. States have many other ways of expressing dis-pleasure and imposing pains and penalties on members of the system. They run the gamut from the use of force (overt, covert, or surrogate), through interruption of economic or diplomatic relations (complete or partial) and the withholding of courtesies or amenities (such as state visits), to verbal expressions of disapproval (more or less public). The ordinary experience of diplomatic life teaches a state and its leaders to expect embarrassment, polit-ical isolation, and subtler forms of shaming, shunning, and loss of status if it acts against strongly held views of others. Pressures and disapproval of these kinds are the stock-in-trade of political and diplomatic intercourse among states. 1 For the purposes of this chapter, we focus on actions at the coercive end of this range. 2 We are not concerned here with such Sanctions as general instruments of foreign policy. They are useful if not essential tools for these purposes, and in addition to seeking to change the behavior of the target country, they may serve a variety of other functions, foreign and domestic, whether to send a signal, to demonstrate resolve, to make a statement, or to respond to demands of domestic constituencies. No observer of foreign affairs would contend that they would or should be forsworn by foreign ministries for these purposes. The question we address here is different: How useful are unilateral sanc-tions, or how useful could they be, in enforcing treaty obligations? Tradi-tional international legal doctrine seems to confirm their utility. The right of retaliation is built into the law of treaties. 3 A material breach entitles the aggrieved party to terminate or suspend the treaty. But the practice of states seems at odds with any notion of easy recourse to ‘‘self-help’’ enforcement.

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  Available until 15 Jan |Learn more

  Studying 'Effectiveness' in International Relations

  A guide for students and scholars

  • Hendrik Hegemann, Regina Heller, Martin Kahl, Hendrik Hegemann, Regina Heller, Martin Kahl(Authors)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • Verlag Barbara Budrich

    (Publisher)

  Until the late 1990s neither the governments imposing, nor other actors calling for Sanctions seemed to be very interested in or inhibited by the mainstream view in aca-demic research (Baldwin 2000; Brzoska 2001). Baldwin explains the sanction paradox primarily as a disjuncture between the broad set of objectives held by political proponents of Sanctions – including domestic and alliance politics – and the much narrower scope of measuring ‘success’ which is dominant in academic research. He suggests that proponents of Sanctions are strongly influenced by looking at their (often limited) policy alternatives – and decide on implementing measures which are generally not very costly but still dem-onstrate that decision makers are ‘doing something’. In other words, politi-cians are guided strongly by considerations of efficiency and less by the effectiveness of Sanctions, and are concerned with both domestic and interna- 144 tional audiences beyond the state, group or individuals targeted by Sanctions (Barber 1979; Lindsay 1986). Still, in the late 1990s international sanction policy was in crisis. On the one hand, Sanctions with very strong effects had recently been put into effect in Iraq, Yugoslavia and Haiti. Unfortunately, they were not hurting those responsible for the policies against which Sanctions had been adopted by the international community of states, but rather the general population in the sanctioned countries. On the other hand, a large number of Sanctions that were imposed had no discernible effect at all. This was particularly true of several arms embargoes (Cortright/Lopez 2002; Tierney 2005; Brzoska/ Lopez 2009). However, in response to the sanction crisis, a new paradigm was devel-oped which to some extent shifted the debate: targeted Sanctions were devel-oped to address both the problem of Sanctions with major humanitarian effects and those without any effects at all (Tostensen/Bull 2002; Brzoska 2003; Drezner 2011).

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  The Routledge Handbook of the Political Economy of Sanctions

  • Ksenia Kirkham(Author)
  • 2023(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Hofer 2017 ).

  That said Article 19 of the Charter of the Organization of American States prohibits the “use of coercive measures of an economic or political character in order to force the sovereign will of another State and obtain from it advantages of any kind”. However, the prohibition has not been exported to the rest of world. As I argue elsewhere, though a large portion of states frequently condemn economic coercion it is difficult to argue (from a positivist approach to the law), that this practice is forbidden (Hofer 2017 ).

  As argued in the next section, if we understand that Sanctions can amount to violence, albeit not physical or interpersonal but economic and structural, then this is ample reason to consider that they could amount to coercion, even a use of force.

  Sanctions as Violence

  Economic violence entails causing harm to an individual's, or a group's, economic well-being. It is commonly identified as a form of violence against women, often where a woman is denied access to economic resources and independence by her partner because the latter seeks to exert control. In such circumstances, economic violence is inter-personal and is considered deliberate. Yet, such harm can also be understood as systemic and as a by-product of power relations. Ireland (2022 : 43) explains economic violence as a “socially constituted power arrangement as well as an embodied material violence that has effects that result in injury, death, trauma, psychological harm, maldevelopment, deprivation, and […] criminalization”. It “inflict[s] economic and material dispossession, displacement, deprivation, terror, suffering, pain, and often death on those who are largely powerless to have recourse against it” (ibid.: 42). Importantly, per her understanding, economic violence can result from state policies even if this is not deliberate. In this manner, it is akin to structural violence, emerges from social relations and arrangements that manage how “individuals and groups interact within a social system” (Ryker-Bauer and Farmer 2016 : 47). If policies lead to “rampant economic inequality, social exclusion, and persistent poverty” then they are structurally violent (Sánchez 2006 : 179). This is because they “[result] in avoidable deaths, illness, and injury; and they reproduce violence by marginalizing people and communities, constraining their capabilities and agency, assaulting their dignity, and sustaining inequalities” (emphasis added, Ryker-Bauer and Farmer 2016

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  Republican Principles in International Law

  The Fundamental Requirements of a Just World Order

  • M. Sellers(Author)
  • 2006(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  Since governments, like persons, dislike dis- approval, economic Sanctions can influence states without being directly effective, or even very harmful. Economic Sanctions give states, organizations and individuals a convincing method of express- ing their sincere (because it is expensive) disapproval of violations of international law. 202 Any state that imposes economic Sanctions is punishing itself, or its own people, which guarantees its expressive sincerity. This expression becomes weaker when governments are not democratic, but even despotic rulers draw their wealth from the people, and will eventually become impover- ished, if their subjects suffer too much. Unilateral Sanctions almost always hurt the states that impose them more than their targets, because target populations can usually circumvent Sanctions, while states that impose them cannot. So economic Sanctions are almost always expressive rather than directly effective. They express one organization’s, state’s or group of states’ disapproval of another state’s action, which Sanctions publicly iden- tify and condemn as violations of international law. Expressions through Sanctions have greater force than simple declara- tions because their cost confirms their sincerity. When strengthened by multilateral consensus, by General Assembly Resolutions, 203 or by the decisions of the Security Council, 204 Sanctions can confirm the content of international law, whether or not they are effective. Non-state actors can speak through Sanctions as well as states can. The economic boycott of South Africa by certain United States corporations was particularly effective as an expression of disapproval, because the corporations acted 198 Republican Principles in International Law before the United States government, with measures that were costly to themselves. The strength of economic Sanctions as an expression of law and disapproval may be counterproductive, when disapproval breeds resent- ment.

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  Economic Statecraft

  Human Rights, Sanctions, and Conditionality

  • Cécile Fabre(Author)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Harvard University Press

    (Publisher)

  c h a p t e r t w o Economic Sanctions E conomic statecraft operates on agents’ rights with respect to material resources. Insofar as it comprises economic Sanctions, it constitutes an interference with agents’ property rights in general and their rights to trade in particular. In extant practices, Sanctions are standardly defended as a means to stop ongoing human rights violations; to deter the commission of future human rights violations; and to get the targets of those Sanctions to align their rightful domestic and foreign policies to the sanctioning party’s interests. In this chapter, and in keeping with my overall approach in the book, I examine the first two rationales. I begin by offering a typology of sanc-tions and describing how they work. I then defend Sanctions insofar as they apply to agents who commit or contribute to human rights violations, and as they are meant to prevent those agents from so acting or to make it more costly for them to so act. Next, I turn to Sanctions as a mechanism for deterring putative wrongdoers from committing future violations. In a third move, I argue that Sanctions may also sometimes be justifiably im-posed on those who are not wrongdoers, on the grounds that the latter are under duties to shoulder some of the costs of protecting Target’s vic-tims. Having provided a defense of limited Sanctions, I offer a partial 30 E co n o m i c S a n c t i o n s rebuttal of the often-raised objection that Sanctions are ineffective and therefore morally wrong. Three caveats before I start. First, I restrict my account to the following kinds of Sanctions: Sanctions that are applied by the United Nations and Sanctions that are applied by multistate organizations such as the Euro-pean Union or the African Union, as well as by a sovereign state, against economic activities in which at least one of the parties is subject to the territorial or personal jurisdiction of these states.

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  Economic Sanctions

  Law and Public Policy

  • K. Alexander(Author)
  • 2009(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  This created ambiguity regarding exactly what the Iraqi leadership needed to do in order to have Sanctions relaxed. This contributed to the Security Council’s failure to per- suade Saddam Hussein to cease his efforts at acquiring the means to develop weapons of mass destruction, even though the Sanctions regime itself was successful in preventing Hussein from acquiring such weapons. This chapter examines some of the economic theories and empirical data in world trade and financial markets that can inform policymakers in devis- ing more effective economic Sanctions. Nevertheless, it should not be for- gotten that economic Sanctions can serve purposes other than imposing economic costs. The effectiveness of a state’s Sanctions programme does not necessarily have to be determined by the economic costs imposed on the target or by whether the target has changed its behaviour. Rather, a state’s decision to impose Sanctions may be motivated by the objective of defining the content of a norm, the breach of which justifies imposing the sanction. This important aspect of state practice is often overlooked in the economic Sanctions debate. For instance, a state may impose Sanctions merely to com- municate to the target its dissatisfaction with its policies without necessarily expecting to impose significant economic costs on the target. Similarly, a state can impose Sanctions with the primary intention of sending signals to third country states or persons who are not the direct targets with a view to influencing their behaviour towards the sanctioning state or the target. 54 Economic Sanctions: Law and Public Policy Economic Sanctions therefore can promote a number of objectives that do not necessarily involve changing the target’s behaviour or imposing signifi- cant economic or social costs.

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  Economic Sanctions and Presidential Decisions

  Models of Political Rationality

  • A. Drury(Author)
  • 2005(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  The White House has banned travel, held up the sale of weapons, cut aid, imposed quotas, frozen assets, held up parts shipments, and so on. The list is as exten- sive as U.S. economic interactions are with other nations. These options can be categorized into types that provide information about the severity of the coercion. In this chapter, I show that international factors continue to have the biggest impact on the president’s sanction choices to initiate, but that explaining the aspects of lifting Sanctions is problematic (not unlike the difficulty of explaining the president’s decisions to modify Sanctions). I also use prospect theory to probe the domestic political considerations further and find that they have little impact on what type of sanction the president selects. Below, I spell out prospect theory and use it to explain the relation- ship between domestic imperatives and the president’s choice of economic Sanctions. Next, I develop hypotheses for the president’s choice of which type of Sanctions to initiate and then his selection of the type of Sanctions to lift. Both of these questions are tested and the conclusions discussed. Choosing the Type of Economic Coercion At the most basic level, economic Sanctions do not directly threaten American lives—a subject with which the public is quite concerned (Jentleson 1992: 51–52). While it is difficult to conceive of the president using military force without considering domestic sentiment, it is easy to conceive of the president disregarding domestic sentiment when deciding to use economic Sanctions. Because economic Sanctions do not garner the same dramatic attention as military force does, they provide an interesting and hard case for testing the influence of domes- tic political factors on foreign policy decisions. However, the president does not entirely disregard domestic politics when using economic coercion. Nor does he ignore these factors when modifying an eco- nomic sanction policy.

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