Ahmadi, Ali

Economic sanctions have become the weapon of choice for many countries around the world to address a variety of foreign policy goals and challenges ranging from military invasion to human rights abuses. The growing use of sanctions requires a deeper assessment of their impact on the population of the target state. Sanctions scholars have consistently found that sanctions result in target countries becoming less democratic, and more prone to human rights abuses, corruption and economic securitization. This is in addition to significant backsliding in rights for civil society groups, journalists, democratic movements, women and minority populations. Many of these effects are the result of actions taken by target governments but the clear trend of sanctions generating these consequences warrants inquiry into the complicity of the sanctioning parties. Specific examples will be explored on how sanctions produce negative consequences for targeted populations and the implications regarding the complicity of the sanctioning states. The complex issue of whether to deploy economic sanctions when faced with egregious human rights violations or cross-border military aggression will also be explored. In these cases, states often face difficult choices about whether to use sanctions in an effort to address these issues and potentially face complicity or avoid the use of sanctions resulting in complicity through inaction.