Sanctions impose a direct economic cost to the sanctioned country by impeding its capacity to export, or reducing its ability to acquire and import goods, services, and technologies. The inefficiencies they cause reduce the overall purchasing power of the economy, thereby inhibiting growth and forcing the country to invest in domestic production (e.g., to meet its needs for oil and other fuels).
Sanctuaries, a related tool of economic coercion, restrict access to a nation’s natural resources. These restrictions are often aimed at maintaining strategic and technological advantages over rival nations. Examples include the arms embargo that the US imposed on Russia in 2002, and the recent semiconductor export controls that the EU and the US have imposed on China.
The goal of sanctions is to compel the targeted country’s leaders to change their policy positions, but a key problem with sanctions is that they also have negative broader socioeconomic impacts on the population. These include deteriorating health outcomes, environmental degradation including groundwater depletion and contamination from heavy metals, a weakening in governance, and reduced lifespans. While many studies use carbon emissions as a proxy control variable for environmental degradation, this approach cannot capture all the effects of sanctions because the damage is multiattribute in nature. The societal costs of sanctions therefore need to be better understood from an environmental justice standpoint. The growing prevalence of sanctions also highlights the need to develop more comprehensive approaches for international cooperation, including through multilateral institutions like the UN Security Council.