Sanctions as a tool for compliance : A quantitative study on violations of international humanitarian law and imposition of economic sanctions

The 1990’s did not only see the end of the Cold War, it experienced several man-made humanitarian crises, an emerging debate on the responsibility to protect, and an increased number of sanctions. All at the same time. How does these relate to each other? International economic sanctions can be seen as having the purposes of both punishing and making others comply with certain norms (Galtung, 1967:379). I believe that both of these purposes are visible when imposing sanctions as reactions to violations of international humanitarian law. Because of this, I argue that violations of IHL are likely to be met with sanctions. In this thesis, I study whether or not this hypothesis holds true. Specifically, I test the probability of receiving sanctions after the following IHL rules have been violated: the prohibition of child soldiers, torture, use of terror, one-sided violence and sexual violence. Most research on economic sanctions focuses either on their effect on armed conflict, or exclusively on one international institution. This thesis contributes to the research field by presenting a quantitative study on the effect violations of international humanitarian law can have on the imposition of economic sanctions, and whether there is a difference in how different violations are being reacted to