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.

Introduction -- Defining the terms -- Iraq -- Taking on Iran -- On sanctions imposition and pain -- Pressure begins on Iran -- On target response and resolve -- Intense pressure on Iran and a turn to real negotiations -- On the search for inflection points -- Looking ahead

Peter van Bergeijk brings together 40 leading experts from all continents to analyze state-of-the-art data covering the sharp increase in (smart) sanctions in the last decade. Original chapters provide detailed analyses on the determinants of sanction success and failure, complemented with research on the impact of sanctions.

Tracing the history of economic sanctions from the blockades of World War I to the policing of colonial empires and the interwar confrontation with fascism, Nicholas Mulder combines political, economic, legal, and military history to reveal how a coercive wartime tool was adopted as an instrument of peacekeeping by the League of Nations.This timely study casts an overdue light on why sanctions are widely considered a form of war, and why their unintended consequences are so tremendous.

"Even before the extensive sanctions imposed on Russia for its 2022 invasion of Ukraine, it was hard to browse the news without seeing reports of yet another set of sanctions. The United States has sanctions against over 30 countries as well as drug traffickers, terrorist organizations and specially designated individuals. China long has been a target of sanctions and in recent years increasingly a wielder against countries and companies even organizations like the National Basketball Association (NBA). Russia also has been sanctions sender as well as target. The European Union has joined some of the American sanctions as well as imposing its own. In some cases the United Nations has authorized fully multilateral sanctions. While being used more frequently in recent years sanctions go back decades, indeed centuries, to such cases as the 432 BC Athens against Sparta and Napoleon's 1808-1814 Continental System. Given such frequency of use, you'd think sanctions were a sure-fire weapon. Yet the record is quite mixed. So some initial puzzles: Why are economic sanctions used so much? What are the key factors affecting their success? These and related questions are well suited for an Oxford University Press What Everyone Needs to Know book. They long have been important among international relations scholars, spanning international security and international political economy subfields. And with sanctions such a recurring foreign policy strategy, they are crucial for policy makers. As someone who has both studied sanctions as a scholar and worked on these issues while serving in key U.S. foreign policy positions, Bruce W. Jentleson is well suited to provide analysis valuable for students, scholars and practitioners"--

Economic sanctions are increasingly important instruments of regulatory and foreign policy. This book provides a detailed study of the post-9/11 financial sanctions programmes in the US and Europe, examining the key regulatory and legal issues that confront businesses and related liability issues for third parties and individuals.