Ethical are Sanctions

How Ethical are Sanctions?
By Sharon White

In the last ten years, it seems that the result of the use of sanctions, (authoritative permission or approval) to induce policy is an alarming amount of humanitarian suffering. The question now arises, is that respectable? If focusing on the weakest portion of the population, and using them to achieve leverage, is what sanctions result in, this is only exploitation, an injustice to human dignity. And this is unethical, unrespectable and certainly, unjust.

However, although historical accounts of sanctions implementations show dire realities as a result of the policy, the problems associated with sanctions are increasingly being studied and understood. Increasingly we can see the development of a new type of sanction, different from the type accounted for in the past, trying to deal with the very unethical problems past sanctions have caused. Therefore it is possible to now see a 'smarter', more ethical sanction developed, in contrast and addition to many types of sanctions which have been imposed in the past. However, the fact that many sanctions as they appear today are still in the same form as before, ignoring humanitarian consequences, mean that sanctions cannot in themselves be viewed as ethical, but rather that the possibility of them being more ethical should not be discounted.

The fact that it is the weakest, most vulnerable of the population which suffer most from sanctions is unjust. The shortages of food, fuel, water, etc. effect those who are least able to defend themselves, or survive easily, such as the elderly, sick, very young, and meanwhile, those who are more privileged are able to keep the resources necessary. Thus because sanctions are effecting the people who will have the least input into policy or military decisions, they are not a just form of policy, as they are targeting the wrong people.