Over the past three decades, sanctions have become a popular tool for pressuring and punishing governments in the hopes of reforming their behavior. But a growing body of research shows that they inflict severe and lasting damage on targeted economies and populations, with vulnerable civilians often bearing the brunt of the pain. Building from international law discussions about forceful humanitarian intervention as ‘the responsibility to protect,’ international relations experts have argued that there is also ‘the responsibility [or the imperative] to rebuild’ war-torn nations. If peacebuilding warrants a responsibility to rebuild, what responsibility does post-economic sanctions peacebuilding require? After all, the negative humanitarian consequences of sanctions often linger even after sanctions are removed, trapping targeted populations in economic distress and devastation. It is this ethical dilemma we set out to explore.
We advance the case that there should be an ethics to restore a besieged economy, operationalized by effective social and economic remedies. We state the five most essential policy goals/principles below (from a number of international examples).
These include:
Principle [1]: A prompt, facilitated delisting of entities — banks, financial institutions, companies — and individuals placed under sanctions for political and related non-criminal reasons, permitting them to operate freely in the regional and global economy. This would also entail the timely release of frozen assets and other financial resources of the nation and entities.
As of Spring 2020, for example, US sanctions have retained and confiscated more than $4.8 billion in assets belonging to the Venezuelan government, including $1.2 billion in gold deposits that were seized by the Bank of England. In addition to the immediate return of these assets to the Venezuelan treasury, there should be swift compensation for all CITGO revenues that were diverted to US-backed opposition leaders. These funds, regardless of who leads the Venezuelan government, would begin to fund its economic recovery, and eventually, repay the nation’s substantial foreign debts. The latter is key to acquiring international development loans.
Principle [2]: An aggressive, well-financed commitment to thaw the ‘chilly climate’ on national banks and financial institutions by the sanctioning nations, thus removing the currency straight-jacket that results from sustained, punishing financial sanctions.
This dilemma was apparent in the immediate rollback of sanctions by the Obama administration after the signing of the Iran Deal. Banks, development agencies and international companies will always be cautious and risk-averse to engaging with a recently sanctioned nation unless the imposers of sanctions inject optimism into the banking and commercial sectors through their own new investments and partnerships.
Principle [3]: Remedy the basic socio-economic welfare costs endured by the civilian population during the sanctions. With the assistance of international agencies, such undertakings need to rectify health, food, water and housing crises that may have developed as a result of sanctions. Research studies show that sanctions result in greater inequality, with the heaviest burden hitting both the working class and the poorest within the civil society. Thus, the major goal of this policy recommendation is a level of immediate restoration to establish the viability of the medical, food, and water sectors of the country.
Principle [4]: Empower the government to generate a national development plan that assists local economic viability to at least the performance level prior to sanctions. This must include, as noted in 2 above, remedies to the economic isolation that encumbers the banking and financial sectors, with particular attention to their ability to facilitate currency and other financial movements regionally and globally. This must lead to restoring the capacity of local business and financial leaders to wholeness economically, regarding their assets and legal liabilities that may have jeopardized them due to their managerial position in a national [non-war making] enterprise.
Principle [5]: Provide the resources necessary to decriminalize the economy and end the corruption that sustains it within various political, legal, and economic institutions. Of all the remedies described briefly here, this is the most substantial commitment required of sanctions imposers and like-minded nations. It involves a labyrinth of actions in building a rule of law capacity that is stronger than the corruption and criminalization that might be dominating the once sanctioned economy.
In October 2021, the Department of Treasury Sanctions Review pledged that US sanctions policy would devote more attention to mitigating unintended negative humanitarian effects of sanctions. Yet, it was short on specific next steps to be taken to attain this goal. There are very few models for operationalizing these principles as imperative tasks. However, the failing economies of sanctioned states now demand the implementation of the five action-oriented principles outlined herein policy form.
Recently published as Chapter 11 of Ernesto Verdeja, et al, eds: Wicked Problems: The Ethics of Action for Peace, Rights, and Justice
George A. Lopez
George A. Lopez is the Hesburgh Professor of Peace Studies, Emeritus, at the Kroc Institute, University of Notre Dame and one of the world’s ranking experts on economic sanctions. Over three decades Lopez has advised the United Nations, international agencies, and various governments regarding sanctions issues, ranging from the design of targeted financial sanctions to limiting their humanitarian impact. He also has written extensively on economic sanctions.
Beatrix Geaghan-Breiner
Beatrix Geaghan-Breiner is a Research Assistant at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. She recently graduated from Columbia University, where she studied the history of U.S. foreign policy.
