Economic sanctions and global governance: the case of Iraq

This article looks at the history of economic sanctions as a tool of global governance. For much of the twentieth century, sanctions were seen as a non-violent alternative to military intervention. As a form of international governance, sanctions have always been characterised by conflicting claims: that sanctions are effective enough to punish or block wrongful acts by states; but they are at the same time measures that will not cause damage to the population as a whole, in the way that warfare does. The sanctions imposed on Iraq by the United Nations Security Council illustrate how sanctions at their most extreme can in fact be fully as damaging as warfare.