What are sanctions? Who is sanctioned?

What are sanctions?

Technically, they are commercial and financial penalties applied by one or more countries against another government, group or individual.

They can include restrictions on trade as the United States has imposed on Iran, Cuba, North Korea, Syria, Zimbabwe and 14 other countries. These trade restrictions often prohibit other countries, including non-sanctioned countries, from also trading with the targeted country, a form of secondary sanction, or risk being sanctioned themselves.

A government can sanction by reducing foreign aid that is typically given as the US did to Palestine or it can block loans through US-dominated institutions such as the International Monetary Fund or World Bank.

Sanctions are also used as retaliation to undermine the efforts of countries to move toward more independence or develop non-capitalist economies.

Sanctions were imposed on members of the International Criminal Court for proceeding with an investigation of the US’ war crimes in Afghanistan.

Sanctions are war. They are just as deadly as bullets and bombs, but the damage and deaths are not as visible to those outside the country.

Sanctions kill by destroying economies, causing hyperinflation and unemployment so people cannot afford basic necessities.

One study found sanctions contributed to 40,000 deaths in Venezuela between 2017 and 2018. Another study found sanctions contributed to the deaths of 4,000 North Koreans in 2018, most of them children and pregnant women. In the early 1990’s, US sanctions against Iraq led to the deaths of as many as 880,000 children under five due to malnutrition and disease.

Technically, the sanctions imposed by the US are not sanctions but are unilateral coercive measures.

Sanctions imply there was a legal process employed that found a country, group or individual in violation of a law and that entity was then punished using sanction, but what the United States is doing mostly operates outside that process.

When the United States does use a legal process, such as through the United Nations, the US applies pressure on other countries to achieve its desired result.

Some impacted countries are starting to challenge the unilateral coercive measures in court. In October, 2018, Iran won a case against the United States in the United Nations’ International Court of Justice over the US imposed sanctions but the US refused to comply with the ruling. Currently, Venezuela has a case before the International Criminal Court charging the US with crimes against humanity for the suffering and death its coercive measures have caused.

To get the sanctions lifted, countries must agree to the United States' demands for austerity measures, elections that meet the US’s approval and other economic and political concessions. This is why the sanctions are actually unilateral coercive economic measures, which are illegal.

While the United States government says that sanctions exempt necessities such as food and medicine and often claims the sanctions impact government or other officials, the reality is that it is the civilian population, especially women, children, the elderly and those who have health conditions, who are impacted the most.

There were calls from international bodies such as the United Nations to end sanctions because of their impacts on food and health. The United States rejected this call for cooperation and instead dropped out of the World Health Organization, increased sanctions against countries such as Iran and Venezuela and continued its military aggression.

The United States also failed to provide the basics for its own people during the pandemic. It should be no surprise that a government that has no regard for the lives of people abroad would show the same disregard for its own population.

The economic war that people experience in the United States is similar to what people experience in sanctioned countries. The same neoliberal economic policies that the US imposes on countries around the world are imposed on people within the US.

It is time for people around the world to unite and demand an end to the economic wars being waged at home and abroad.

Join the Sanctions Kill campaign at SanctionsKill.org. You'll find resources and actions that you can take.

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The above text is adapted from educational materials provided in the SanctionsKill Campaign's book, "Sanctions: A Wrecking Ball in a Global Economy" 2nd edition (2022). Learn more information at SanctionsKill.org.

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