Economic sanctions as a means to enforce human rights

The United Nations Security Council has recently imposed economic sanctions against several states with the aim to protect human rights. Before the Second World War economic sanctions had been imposed under the Covenant of the League of Nations. It was, however, only with the creation of the United Nations and the evolution of international human rights law that economic sanctions have been imposed explicitly in the name of human rights. While the Security Council has ordered economic sanctions against Iraq, Haiti and the former Yugoslavia for their human rights violations, the thesis explores the reasons why the Council has not taken similar measures against other countries with comparable human rights records and concludes that, there exists a double standard. Another important issue examined concerns the collateral consequences of economic sanctions. More often than not, it is the civilian population that ends up enduring the harsh conditions that result from the sanctions. The thesis suggests that the economic sanctions imposed for human rights purposes may in fact result in the infringement of the basic human rights of the very population that they are intended to protect