The Human Rights Impact of Broad-Based Economic Sanctions — Time to Rethink our Approach?
WATCH VIDEO OF THE EVENT BELOW
Over the past three decades, we have seen an explosion in the United States’ use of broad-based economic sanctions. Policymakers on both sides of the aisle view sanctions as an attractive, low-cost foreign policy tool. Sanctions are often seen as an alternative to war and justified on human rights grounds. The economic pain inflicted on the target country is supposed to compel it to cease its human rights abuses. But are broad-based economic sanctions themselves an instrument that violates human rights by increasing the suffering of civilian populations? Growing evidence shows that broad-based economic sanctions have disastrous human rights impacts on the ground, causing starvation, shortages in critical medicines, electricity, and even clean water. Is it time to rethink our usage of broad-based economic sanctions?
Join us on Wednesday, April 28 at 1:00 PM EST for a discussion on human rights and broad-based economic sanctions.
The panel will include QI Non-Resident Fellow Asli Bali, Professor of Law at UCLA; Peter Beinart, Professor of Journalism and Political Science at the Newmark School of Journalism at the City University of New York; and QI Non-Resident Fellow Joshua Landis, Syria expert and Professor of Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma. Trita Parsi, Quincy Institute’s Executive Vice President, will moderate the conversation.