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The methodology presented here is intended to be sufficiently flexible to facilitate assessment of potential impacts associated with different types of sanctions, and to be applied to assessments associated with different types of economic and social systems. The shift towards more targeted sanctions in the late 1990s has highlighted four categories of sanctions that will most likely be applied in the future (rather than comprehensive economic sanctions): (1) arms embargoes; (2) financial sanctions; (3) travelrelated sanctions; and (4) targeted trade sanctions. These categories are consistent with those identified in the Final Report of the Stockholm Process on the Implementation of Targeted Sanctions (see section 1.3).34
This section outlines characteristics of each of these four types of sanctions that may be relevant to carrying out a humanitarian assessment under the respective category of sanctions. In addition, categoryspecific indicators and data sources are identified to provide investigators with a starting point for gathering information on the particular type of sanctions. Table 5 summarizes areas of interest, indicators and data sources for these four categories of targeted sanctions.
Arms embargoes are unlikely to have direct negative humanitarian impacts. They may result in some reduced employment for soldiers or those working in defence production industries, thus resulting in reduced purchasing power for these individuals and their families. However, the indirect effects may be greater. Governments may devote larger amounts of scarce foreign exchange and administrative effort to acquire banned weapons. This would reduce resources available for other governmental functions such as education, health services and the maintenance of essential infrastructure. It may also contribute to a downward spiral of worsening conditions for producers, declining GDP or increasing indebtedness, declining employment, and inflation. Alternatively, decreased spending on weapons could contribute to either improved governance and increased social spending, or overthrow of a regime.
In situations where an arms embargo may reduce the ability of one or more parties to a conflict to sustain their fighting, or reduce the ability of an oppressive regime to harm civilians, there may also be significant positive humanitarian impacts of the arms embargo.
Financial sanctions may have a chilling effect on capital markets, make credit scarce, increase inflation and decrease trade. Any of these results would have a negative impact on employment and increase the cost of goods, especially but not limited to the economic sectors or businesses of those individuals/groups targeted by sanctions.
Financial sanctions may indirectly constrain trade by nature of the impact on currencies used in particular trade sectors. For example, U.S. sanctions imposed on Myanmar in 2003 included a ban on American financial transactions with the country. The sanctions sharply impacted Myanmar’s trade, both directly and because companies involved in trade depended on letters of credit that are denominated in U.S. dollars for imports and exports. Some of these more indirect impacts, however, may be shortlived, as companies explore options to switch to other trading currencies.
Travelrelated sanctions that are targeted against a select number of individuals are likely to have few impacts on the general population. Only if such bans interrupt trade or create a more unfavourable environment for investment or trade would they reduce employment, decrease the importation of key goods or stimulate inflation.
One possible, and limited, area where aviation or shipping bans can have humanitarian implications is in situations where these modes of transportation are used to deliver medical goods/supplies or to provide access to medical care inside or outside the targeted region and where other modes of transport cannot be used. Aviation bans can avoid these potential impacts by including appropriate humanitarian exemptions.
Of the various forms of sanctions, targeted trade sanctions are the most likely to have an impact on humanitarian conditions. By reducing or eliminating activity in a particular economic sector, a trade sanction is likely to reduce employment in that sector greatly, thus reducing the buying power of those employees and their dependents, which creates a multiplier effect on other economic sectors that provide goods and services.
Many firms with international trade in developing countries may be the major employer in a region. Constraining trade in that industry could reduce local funds for municipal governmental functions, including the provision of security, health and social services. Furthermore, some industries provide direct support for health and education of employees or their dependents, investments in roads, communications, sanitation in communities where they live, or pension payments for former employees.
If trade for such an industry is halted, funds for most of these activities may disappear. The indirect effects can thus affect a population far larger than those who lose employment in that sector.
Where trade blocks the import of fuel (such as petroleum), as was the case specifically in Haiti and Burundi, the economic effects are pervasive since every industry is influenced by the availability and cost of energy, whether for transport or production.
An additional indirect effect could be the impact on the general business environment of the country. Commercial funds may become inaccessible, insurance and transport costs of other industries may go up, and inflation can rise. If these things occur, the purchasing power and availability of employment throughout the country will likely decline, further contributing to worsening conditions of life for many people not directly related to the industry in question. This type of general economic decline and stagnation has been observed in many countries under trade sanctions, including the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Myanmar, Haiti and Libyan Arab Jamahiriya. Where the economy was large, complex and largely selfreliant, as in South Africa, the economic ramifications of sanctions were harder to prove, even if they may have been substantial.
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