Nova ocena “humanitarnih stroškov”, to je smrtnih žrtev zaradi gospodarskih sankcij proti državam (38 milijonov smrtnih žrtev od od leta 1970), ki dodatno poudarja, kar je jasno že nekaj desetletij: sankcije so zelo neučinkovite, če je njihov namen zamenjava režima (le 4 % “uspeh”, glejte spodaj), imajo pa zelo visoke humanitarne stroške, zato se jih Varnostni svet OZN od začetka 1990-ih let ne poslužuje več.

Seveda pa to ne velja za ZDA in EU države, ki jih zelo rade negujejo, ko si želijo zamenjati režim v posameznih državah. Na žalost pa ceno namesto kontroverznih politikov plačajo državljani.

Hufbauer, Schott, and Elliot (2008) argue that regime change is the most frequent foreign-policy objective of economic sanctions, accounting for just over 39 percent of cases of their imposition.^[24] Hufbauer et al. found that 34 percent of the cases studied were successful.^[25] However, when Robert A. Pape examined their study, he found that only 5 of their reported 40 successes were actually effective,^[26] reducing the success rate to 4%. In either case, the difficulty and unexpected nuances of measuring the actual success of sanctions in relation to their goals are both increasingly apparent and still under debate. In other words, it is difficult to determine why a regime or country changes (i.e., whether it was the sanction or inherent instability) and doubly so to measure the full political effect of a given action.^[27]

Offering an explanation as to why sanctions are still imposed even when they may be marginally effective, British diplomat Jeremy Greenstock suggests sanctions are popular not because they are known to be effective, but because “there is nothing else [to do] between words and military action if you want to bring pressure upon a government”.^[28] Critics of sanctions like Belgian jurist Marc Bossuyt argue that in nondemocratic regimes, the extent to which this affects political outcomes is contested, because by definition such regimes do not respond as strongly to the popular will.^[29]

…

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.^[34] Some policy analysts believe that imposing trade restrictions only serves to hurt ordinary people as opposed to government elites,^{[35][36][37][38]} and others have likened the practice to siege warfare.^[39][40] 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.^[10]

Vir: Wikipedia