Sanctions and Human Rights: Humanitarian Dilemmas

It is a tragic fact that the increasing resort to economic sanctions has brought with it both burgeoning civilian suffering and humanitarian dilemmas for the staff who have to enforce any sanctions regime. Not even minimum humanitarian safeguards to protect the rights of the peoples who endure such sanctions appear to exist. Yet sanctions clearly have a major impact on the humanitarian situations of peoples and of entire countries. Such clear contradictions have frequently created quandaries for those officials in international organizations who have to "work" the sanctions regime. The paper looks at the emerging international opposition to the use of sanctions, particularly from commercial quarters. Sanctions and human rights are inherently at odds, and it is myopic in the extreme to imagine that sanctions necessarily promote improvements in human rights in the targeted countries. "Economic coercion" as a practical concept is notoriously difficult to define.