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Do Sanctions Work?

Do Sanctions Work?

Do you generally feel that imposing Sanctions on another country really works to get them to do something you want?

Work Sanctions Do

I'm not convinced sanctions do work at all. But they are certainly a step worth considering before war. The problem I have with sanctions is at what price is the removal of one dictator/regime worth? Sanctions inevitably kill innocent civilians well before they affect leaders. People starve, economies deflate, the real cost of sanctions is many lives and livelihoods.

The sanctions crippled the Iraqi economy during the time they were imposed; much of Iraq's infrastructure ran into disrepair from lack of materials and Iraq's capacity for aggression was all but destroyed. The initial purpose of the sanctions, and of all diplomatic sanctions, was to force Iraq's hand in cooperation with the United Nations and possibly cause a change in its previously aggressive foreign policy and abuses of human rights.

Experts have estimated hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, disproportionately children, died as a result of the economic sanctions in Iraq. UNICEF has put the number of child deaths to 500,000. The reasons include lack of medical supplies, malnutrition and especially disease owing to lack of clean water. Among other things, chlorine, needed for disinfecting water supplies, was banned as having a "dual use" in potential weapons manufacture. Even lead pencils were being blocked for similar reasons! In 1996, Madeleine Albright was presented with a figure of half a million children under five having died from the sanctions. She infamously replied she thought the price is worth it. To be fair she later agreed the comment was stupid.

Denis Halliday was appointed United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator in Baghdad, Iraq as of 1 September 1997, at the Assistant Secretary-General level. A year later he resigned after a 34 year career with the UN in order to criticise the sanctions regime. He described the program as genocide. Halliday's successor, Hans von Sponeck, also resigned in protest. So did Jutta Burghardt, head of the World Food Program in Iraq. According to von Sponeck, sanctions restricted Iraqis to living on $100 each of imports per year.

Now of course Iraq is one example and cannot be universally applied to all nations. But it is a lesson that must be learnt.

Do Sanctions Work? History & Civil Business Politics

Here are a listing of the current sanctions in place by the United Nations:

https://www.un.org/News/ossg/sanction.htm

In general, they are not bad. The ones that get the most media attention are the ones that are not quite as clear cut for a result. For instance, there is a resolution to stop the exporting of weapons to Liberia. Liberia was importing weapons and giving them to the RUF that in turn was using them to kill select groups of minorities within the country (genocide). I think that everyone would agree that that was a good sanction. Less guns and weapons, it is more difficult to kill people (not impossible, just more difficult). Trying to buy your result has not proven to work. Allowing oil sales to generate money for the poor people of a problem government has obviously not worked too well. I would equate this sanction to being the same as selling guns and weapons to Liberia and telling them to use them responsibly.