Systematically analyzes the impacts and the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions over the past quarter century.

International sanctions have become the instrument of choice for policymakers dealing with a variety of different challenges to international peace and security. This is the first comprehensive and systematic analysis of all the targeted sanctions regimes imposed by the United Nations since the end of the Cold War. Drawing on the collaboration of more than fifty scholars and policy practitioners from across the globe (the Targeted Sanctions Consortium), the book analyzes two new databases, one qualitative and one quantitative, to assess the different purposes of UN targeted sanctions, the Security Council dynamics behind their design, the relationship of sanctions with other policy instruments, implementation challenges, diverse impacts, unintended consequences, policy effectiveness, and institutional learning within the UN. The book is organized around comparisons across cases, rather than country case studies, and introduces two analytical innovations: case episodes within country sanctions regimes and systematic differentiation among different purposes of sanctions.

Anton Moiseienko analyses the blacklisting foreigners suspected of corruption and the prohibition of their entry into the sanctioning state from an international law perspective. The implications of such actions have been on the international agenda for years and have gained particular prominence with the adoption by the US and Canada of the so-called Magnitsky legislation in 2016. Across the Atlantic, several European states followed suit. The proliferation of anti-corruption entry sanctions has prompted a reappraisal of applicable human rights safeguards, along with issues of respect for official immunities and state sovereignty. On the basis of a comprehesive review of relevant law and policy, Anton Moiseienko identifies how targeted sanctions can ensure accountability for corruption while respecting international law.

In recent years, the international community has increasingly come to abandon the use of comprehensive sanctions in favour of targeted sanctions. Unlike adopting a coercive strategy on entire states, actors like the United Nations (UN) and the European Union (EU) have come to resort to measures that are aimed at individuals, groups and government members. Targeted sanctions involve adopting measures such as asset freezes, travel bans, commodity sanctions, as well as arms embargoes. Eriksson argues that recent changes in the practice of sanctions from comprehensive to targeted sanctions requires a new way of understanding international sanctions practice. Not only do we need to rethink our methodology to assess recent practice, but also to rethink the very theory of sanctions. This valuable new perspective provides recent thinking on targeted sanctions, trends in practice and unique case studies for evaluation. Based on substantial research, this is a must-read for students, scholars and practitioners interested in international politics.

Smart Sanctions explores the emerging concept of targeted sanctions and provides a comprehensive framework for new sanctions strategies for the 21st century. It includes essays by experts and analysts from the United Nations community, the European Union, the United States Government, and the academic community. Visit our website for sample chapters!

Throughout the first decades of its existence, many held the view that the UN Security Council would in some senses automatically encourage the protection of human rights by maintaining international peace. However since the end of the Cold War there have been growing concerns that the Council is a force with the potential to do harm to the cause of human rights, even to the extent of violating the rights of individuals. The chapters of this volume take a closer look at these two sides of the Security Council's involvement in human rights; both its efforts to promote and enforce human rights, and its actions that, with the intention of maintaining and restoring international peace, also have the potential to jeopardize human rights. This book represents a collection of individual views and appraisals of how the Council has dealt with human rights issues in the post-Cold War period, particularly in the cases of the economic sanctions imposed on Iraq and the targeted sanctions directed against the Taliban and supporters of the Al Qaida network. Written by experts in the field of international law, they are both positive and negative, critical and analytical. Together they offer a selection of different perspectives and evaluate the contribution of the Security Council to the promotion of human rights, highlighting possible avenue for improvement.

Nations and international organizations are increasingly using sanctions as a means to achieve their foreign policy aims. However, sanctions are ineffective if they are executed without a clear strategy responsive to the nature and changing behavior of the target. In The Art of Sanctions, Richard Nephew offers a much-needed practical framework for planning and applying sanctions that focuses not just on the initial sanctions strategy but also, crucially, on how to calibrate along the way and how to decide when sanctions have achieved maximum effectiveness. Nephew—a leader in the design and implementation of sanctions on Iran—develops guidelines for interpreting targets’ responses to sanctions based on two critical factors: pain and resolve. The efficacy of sanctions lies in the application of pain against a target, but targets may have significant resolve to resist, tolerate, or overcome this pain. Understanding the interplay of pain and resolve is central to using sanctions both successfully and humanely. With attention to these two key variables, and to how they change over the course of a sanctions regime, policy makers can pinpoint when diplomatic intervention is likely to succeed or when escalation is necessary. Focusing on lessons learned from sanctions on both Iran and Iraq, Nephew provides policymakers with practical guidance on how to measure and respond to pain and resolve in the service of strong and successful sanctions regimes.