Экономические санкции: история, применение и последствия.

Financial penalties applied by nations

Economic sanctions are commercial and financial penalties applied by states or institutions against states, groups, or individuals. Economic sanctions are a form of coercion that attempts to get an actor to change its behavior through disruption in economic exchange. Sanctions can be intended to compel (an attempt to change an actor's behavior) or deterrence (an attempt to stop an actor from certain actions). Sanctions can target an entire country or they can be more narrowly targeted at individuals or groups; this latter form of sanctions are sometimes called "smart sanctions". Prominent forms of economic sanctions include trade barriers, asset freezes, travel bans, arms embargoes, and restrictions on financial transactions. The efficacy of sanctions in achieving intended goals is a subject of debate. Scholars have also considered the policy externalities of sanctions. The humanitarian consequences of country wide sanctions have been a subject of controversy. As a consequence, since the mid 1990s, United Nations Security Council (UNSC) sanctions have tended to target individuals and entities, in contrast to the country wide sanctions of earlier decades. By the time of the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, diplomats and legal scholars regularly discussed using coordinated economic pressure to enforce international law. This idea was also included in reform proposals by Latin American and Chinese international lawyers in the years leading up to World War I.

Sanctions have been criticized on humanitarian grounds, as they negatively impact a nation's economy and can also cause collateral damage on ordinary citizens. Peksen implies that sanctions can degenerate human rights in the target country. Some policy analysts believe that imposing trade restrictions only serves to hurt ordinary people as opposed to government elites, and others have likened the practice to siege warfare. The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has generally refrained from imposing comprehensive sanctions since the mid 1990s, in part due to the controversy over the efficacy and civilian harms attributed to the sanctions against Iraq.

One of the most popular suggestions to combat the humanitarian issues that arise from sanctions is the concept of “smart sanctions”, and a lot of research has been done on this concept also known as targeted sanctions. The term "smart sanctions" refers to measures like asset freezes, travel bans, and arms embargoes that aim to target responsible parties like political leaders and elites with the goal of avoiding causing widespread collateral damage to innocent civilians and neighboring nations. Smart Sanctions have also not been totally successful in avoiding civilian harm or unintended consequences. The sanctions resulted in American credit card companies Visa and MasterCard suspending all transactions of sanctioned Russian banks, effectively canceling the credit cards of ordinary Russian consumers. Properly preparing products for trade, sometimes referred to as an embargo check, is a difficult and timely process for both importers and exporters. There are many steps that must be taken to ensure that a business entity does not accrue unwanted fines, taxes, or other punitive measures. Common examples of embargo checks include referencing embargo lists, cancelling transactions, and ensuring the validity of a trade entity. This process can become very complicated, especially for countries with changing embargoes. Before better tools became available, many companies relied on spreadsheets and manual processes to keep track of compliance issues. Today, there are software based solutions that automatically handle sanctions and other complications with trade.

The United States Embargo of 1807 involved a series of laws passed by the US Congress (1806–1808) during the second term of President Thomas Jefferson. Britain and France were engaged in the War of the Fourth Coalition; the US wanted to remain neutral and to trade with both sides, but both countries objected to American trade with the other. American policy aimed to use the new laws to avoid war and to force both France and Britain to respect American rights. The embargo failed to achieve its aims, and Jefferson repealed the legislation in March 1809.

The United States embargo against Cuba began on March 14, 1958, during the overthrow of dictator Fulgencio Batista by Fidel Castro during the Cuban Revolution. At first, the embargo applied only to arms sales; however, it later expanded to include other imports, eventually extending to almost all trade on February 7, 1962. Referred to by Cuba as "el bloqueo" (the blockade), the US embargo on Cuba remains as of 2022 one of the longest standing embargoes in modern history. Few of the United States' allies embraced the embargo, and many have argued it has been ineffective in changing Cuban government behavior. While taking some steps to allow limited economic exchanges with Cuba, American President Barack Obama nevertheless reaffirmed the policy in 2011, stating that without the granting of improved human rights and freedoms by Cuba's current government, the embargo remains "in the national interest of the United States".

Russia has been known to utilize economic sanctions to achieve its political goals. Russia's focus has been primarily on implementing sanctions against the pro Western governments of former Soviet Union states. The Kremlin's aim is particularly on states that aspire to join the European Union and NATO, such as Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia. Russia has enacted a law, the Dima Yakovlev Law, that defines sanctions against US citizens involved in "violations of the human rights and freedoms of Russian citizens". It lists US citizens who are banned from entering Russia.

Viktor Yushchenko, the third president of Ukraine who was elected in 2003, lobbied during his term to gain admission to NATO and the EU. Soon after Yushchenko entered office, Russia demanded Kyiv pay the same rate that it charged Western European states. This quadrupled Ukraine's energy bill overnight. As the Ukrainian economy began to struggle, Yushchenko's approval ratings dropped significantly; reaching the single digits by the 2010 election; Viktor Yanukovych, who was more supportive of Moscow won the election in 2010 to become the fourth president of Ukraine. After his election, gas prices were reduced substantially. Russia would soon implement a number of different sanctions on Georgia, including natural gas price raises through Gazprom and wider trade sanctions that impacted the Georgian economy, particularly Georgian exports of wine, citrus fruits, and mineral water. In 2006, Russia banned all imports from Georgia which was able to deal a significant blow to the Georgian economy. The nature of these sanctions may vary, and include financial, trade, or weaponry restrictions. Motivations can also vary, ranging from humanitarian and environmental concerns to efforts to halt nuclear proliferation. Over two dozen sanctions measures have been implemented by the United Nations since its founding in 1945.

The UN implemented sanctions against Somalia beginning in April 1992, after the overthrow of the Siad Barre regime in 1991 during the Somali Civil War. UNSC Resolution 751 forbade members to sell, finance, or transfer any military equipment to Somalia.

The UNSC passed Resolution 1718 in 2006 in response to a nuclear test that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) conducted in violation of the Treaty on Non Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. The resolution banned the sale of military and luxury goods and froze government assets. Since then, the UN has passed multiple resolutions subsequently expanding sanctions on North Korea. Resolution 2270 from 2016 placed restrictions on transport personnel and vehicles employed by North Korea while also restricting the sale of natural resources and fuel for aircraft. The efficacy of such sanctions has been questioned in light of continued nuclear tests by North Korea in the decade following the 2006 resolution. Professor William Brown of Georgetown University argued that "sanctions don't have much of an impact on an economy that has been essentially bankrupt for a generation".

On February 26, 2011, the UNSC issued an arms embargo against the Libya through Security Council Resolution 1970 in response to humanitarian abuses occurring in the First Libyan Civil War. The embargo was later extended to mid 2018. Under the embargo, Libya has suffered severe inflation because of increased dependence on the private sector to import goods. The sanctions caused large cuts to health and education, which caused social conditions to decrease. Even though the sanctions were in response to human rights, their effects were limited.

In effort to punish South Africa for its policies of apartheid, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a voluntary international oil embargo against South Africa on November 20, 1987; that embargo had the support of 130 countries. South Africa, in response, expanded its Sasol production of synthetic crude. All United Nations sanctions on South Africa ended over the Negotiations to end Apartheid, Resolution 919 and the 1994 South African elections, in which Nelson Mandela was elected as the first post Apartheid president. When asked in 1993 if economic sanctions had helped end apartheid, Mandela replied "Oh, there is no doubt."

The United States, Britain, the Republic of China and the Netherlands imposed sanctions against Japan in 1940–1941 in response to its expansionism. Deprived of access to vital oil, iron ore and steel supplies, Japan started planning for military action to seize the resource rich Dutch East Indies, which required a preemptive attack on Pearl Harbor, triggering the American entry into the Pacific War. In 1973–1974, OAPEC instigated the 1973 oil crisis through its oil embargo against the United States and other industrialized nations that supported Israel in the Yom Kippur War. The results included a sharp rise in oil prices and in OPEC revenues, an emergency period of energy rationing, a global economic recession, large scale conservation efforts, and long lasting shifts toward natural gas, ethanol, nuclear and other alternative energy sources. Israel continued to receive Western support, however. In 2010, the European Union made the decision to sanction Iran due to their involvement in their nuclear program. Theresa Papademetriou states the exact restrictions the EU posed on Iran, "prohibition on the provision of insurance, increased restrictions on and notifications needed for transfers of funds to and from Iran, restrictions on the supply of or traffic in technology and equipment to be used in certain oil and gas fields and prohibition of investment in such fields, expansion of the list of goods and technology whose supply to Iran is either subject to prior authorization or is completely banned and new visa restrictions.” These sanctions banned Iran from carrying out tests on their nuclear weapons and imposed an embargo on the transfer of weapons into the country. These sanctions resulted in drastic macroeconomic downturns for the Iranian economy including volatility in GDP, increase in unemployment, and increase in inflation.

In response to cyber attacks on April 1, 2015, President Obama issued an Executive Order establishing the first ever economic sanctions. The Executive Order was intended to impact individuals and entities ("designees") responsible for cyber attacks that threaten the national security, foreign policy, economic health, or financial stability of the US. Specifically, the Executive Order authorized the Treasury Department to freeze designees— assets. The European Union implemented their first targeted financial sanctions regarding cyber activity in 2020. In response to intelligence analysis alleging Russian hacking and interference with the 2016 US elections, President Obama expanded presidential authority to sanction in response to cyber activity that threatens democratic elections. Given that the original order was intended to protect critical infrastructure, it can be argued that the election process should have been included in the original order.

Vietnam as a result of capitalist influences over the 1990s and having imposed sanctions against Cambodia, is accepting of sanctions disposed with accountability. Brazil introduced sanctions against the US in March 2010. These sanctions were placed because the US government was paying cotton farmers for their products against World Trade Organization rules. The sanctions cover cotton, as well as cars, chewing gum, fruit, and vegetable products. The WTO is currently supervising talks between the states to remove the sanctions.