Between 2010 and 2021, unilateral sanctions caused ~564,258 deaths each year – more than five times the number of people killed annually in direct armed combat. This warning comes from a new report published in The Lancet, which contextualizes decades of data on how sanctions affect mortality.
“From a rights-based perspective, evidence that sanctions lead to losses in lives should be sufficient reason to advocate for the suspension of their use,” the study’s authors argue. But that is far from reality. Over the same decade, nearly a quarter of all of the world’s countries were affected by sanctions, driven primarily by a sharp increase in unilateral economic measures imposed by the United States and its European allies.
While Western sanctions “have the claimed aim to end wars, protect human rights, or promote democracy,” the report shows they do the very opposite. By restricting a country’s ability to import essential goods like food, medicine, and medical supplies, and by slashing public budgets, sanctions systematically undermine healthcare systems and other vital services.
This may be one of the dumbest takes I have ever seen. Sanctions are done instead of armed combat as a diplomatic tool. So instead of using those we should “checks notes” go to more war? That way war kills more people than sanctions.
Pretty glaring omission of the sanctions on Russia in this blog-post universally condemning sanctions.
Looks like the People’s Dispatch is far-left biased, so probably tankies deliberately writing stuff that benefits Russia.
Damn tankies and their checks notes suggestion we not use policy to murder 500k people a year.
First of all, “causing excess death” is not “murder”, no matter how much you want to equate them.
But merely lamenting the consequences of sanctions is like lamenting how lives are ruined by imprisoning criminals with no attention given to what would likely happen if crime just went unpunished.
Sanctions are applied in response to something and have to be viewed through that lens. How many more deaths would result if repressive governments felt they had free rein to commit crimes against their own populations and those of their neighbours if they faced no repercussions for doing so?
This is why the article is written irresponsibly, and probably is a propaganda piece: it does not make any attempt to relate the outcome of sanctions to likely alternative situations in which sanctions were not applied. This way of examining sanctions (or anything) can perfectly well be used to criticise sanctions as causing suffering in excess of what they are supposed to be combating.
There’s a case to be made for sanctions in times of war. The point on the left though is sanctions are an act of war and in the past they’d be enforced through something like a blockade or siege. We’ve white-washed it to make it sound like it’s just simple economic policy though.
The problem with this position is that it doesn’t make sense to say that countries are obliged to trade with one another. If there’s no obligation to trade, then there’s no obligation to avoid sanctions. The difference between sanctions and a blockade is that you’re not forcing other countries not to trade.
The arguments may differ when there are frozen assets but it comes down to the same thing: we categorise actual use of force differently from harmful acts short of force for a reason.
No, mate, the parent commenter asserts that the tankies only claim it murders 500,000 people a year because it also economically hurts Russia.
The left has been harping on this for quite a while.
I am not reading through a fucking 10,000 word podcast transcript to find the relevant two paragraphs. Quote some points if you want.
Exactly man. Stay strong. You’re not here for nuance or context. You’re the kind of guy that likes having little Snippets hand fed to you. Reading is for nerds. If there ain’t a YouTube video saying it while a guy gives shocked reaction faces you don’t need to know it.
I am not saying tankies wrote the Lancet article.
I suggest to count how many more people would Russians kill without sanctions.
Food and medicine aren’t subject to sanctions in the case of Russia. AFAIK agricultural machines also aren’t yet, despite evidence that some of its components had been reused for military equipment.
Contrast this with sanction on countries like Iran or until recently Syria, that affect food and medicine.
Yes, the EU and the USA should widen sanctions on Russia to cover food and medicine too.
We should do the same to israel right?
we should stop sending unlimited bombs and air defense missiles to Israel too
right
Good
Statements like this only help Russia to claim that Ukrainians and their supporters are genocidal Nazis.
No sane people care about what Russian nazies claim.
By saying to deny medicine and food to a population you only make it more likely that you are perceived in the same way. It is wrong and nothing good comes out of starving and denying medical treatment to people.
EDIT: Wow, people now downvoting opposition to crimes against humanity.
Fuck off, there’s only room for hate on Lemmy. You just have to make sure it’s directed at the other guys*.
A strong majority of russians are genocidal imperialists.
An overwhelming majority are broadly supportive of imperialism (on top of the strong majority that are openly genocidal).
The vast majority of russian consider “human rights” to be polemical tool to help forward their aims of genocidal imperialism.
And please don’t bring up “They are all afraid! They actually all oppose putin!” There are well established methodologies for evaluating preference falsification (who could have thought?) and they’ve been applied to multiple research topics with respect to attitudes of russian society. The results are damning. With respect to the annexation of Crimea, which has had consistent support at around ~85% for 7-8 years of polling, preference falsification has been estimated to be a mere 1%, i.e. it is completely irrelevant.
I don’t see why this is relevant to the question of whether one should commit crimes against humanity or not. There is no justification for denying food and medicine to people.
By seeking justifications for that, you end up becoming like the people you claim to fight against. They will tell you the exact same thing as to why their crimes would be justified.
There is no justification for denying food and medicine to people. No matter what they think. No matter what they did. It is a line you cannot cross without destroying your own humanity.
We’ve been down this road with North Korea. If a country’s leadership wants to burn the proverbial furniture and impoverish its people to fuel their war machine, no amount of foreign aid or trade is going to stop the impoverishment, because they will leverage it to offset spending to even more war.
no amount of foreign aid or trade is going to stop the impoverishment
The whole reason why israel didn’t collapse is that we keep sending them billions to finance occupation and genocide
I suggest to count how many less people will die if we didn’t make ourself the enemy of iran and mamy africans countries forcing them to deepen relation with russia
That is a very difficult calculation. But you’re welcome to do the math.
The COVID-19 pandemic brought this dynamic into even harsher focus. Countries like Iran and Venezuela struggled to import critical supplies, including testing kits, vaccine materials, and vaccines themselves.
What an absolute shit article. I doubt anyone will argue we’ve, historically, treated Iran or Venezuela well, but to not even touch on why the sanctions are in place is awful journalism. The disputes didn’t happen in a vacuum and I’d like to hear about what they suggest the sitting regimes are doing to remedy the situation
The disputes didn’t happen in a vacuum
Yes, like ithe usa and the british overthrew the democratically elected prime and put a dictator instead for wanting those countries to stop taking advantages of their natursl ressources
Man what did I write?
I doubt anyone will argue we’ve, historically, treated Iran or Venezuela well, but to not even touch on why the sanctions are in place is awful journalism.
Maduro is an authoritarian who’s starving his population and ask the women of Iran how they feel about their government. Why they’re in the situation they are is clearly with the influence of the us and large parts of the western world. If you do have an alternative to financial blockades please, I am actually all ears.
As someone who tries to avoid American and Chinese made products I really dislike the idea of us indulging even more terrible regimes
why the sanctions are in place To collectively punish countries who doesn’t align with the west. Iran could turn democratic and pro human rights and they would still get sanctionned
Maduro is an authoritarian who’s starving his population and ask the women of Iran how they feel about their government.
The usa is starving the country they sanctions, the usa did war crimes all over the world with other western countries support and complicity, never get sanctionned, israel is comiting genocide and mass starvation never got sanctionned. Saudi arabia is an authoritarian regime as bad as iran never got sanctionned. You can ask saudis women how they feel their government too, you can ask people who fon’t vote because they believe nobody represent them.
This will be the last one for me because you’re clearly looking for a fight and not a discussion when you argue that I’m speaking for these other authoritarian and genociding regimes. And since it seems I have to spoon-feed you it, they should face serious repercussions. Every country that doesn’t abide by basic human rights should be held accountable
What a cheap shot from you , you can’t defend the hypocrisy i mentioned so you start claiming that i just want a fight.
The western countries who caused the mess has zero right to punish other countries for their human right violations. Let Iranians fight their own oppressors
Ok, one more, maybe you’ll actually read what I write now.
I start by saying we haven’t treated either Iran or Venezuela well and that no-one should argue that. And you mention the overthrowing of their leaders which is part of what I meant. We agree.
I again mention that we clearly have a part play in the situation they’re in, and that if you have any better alternatives you should voice them. You do no such things. Instead you! add other countries into the mix which we do not sanction. Again we agree that they should face repercussions.
So now I’m asking you to copy paste my text where in defending western hypocrisy or you should perhaps stay on topic which the article was about. I’m not defending what we’ve done, I also don’t defend current regimes mentioned in the article. I also at least hope some countries have these sanctions in place because they do not want to be complicit and add funding to authoritarian regimes. Do you understand me now?
How cute is to say that we caused the issue but then talk about how we should continue to punish Iran with sanctions. What repercussions did we get from instauring the shah, invading iraq and afghanistan, financing a genocide in gaza. Should we sanctions ourself or be ok with other countries sanctionning us?
I am not again sanctions in general. In case of invasion or genonide which both russia and israel are doing, i am for it. For iran we shouldn’t sanctiona them , it will only made it support russia more out of necessity. Supporting the end of regime with ulterior motive won’t work.
Only iranians who really love the countries could do it without intervention can do it not the traitors who cheared killing hundred of iranians in israel/ iran. Tunisian revolution was relatively succesful because it was natural with no western intervention
Did war write this article?
I am pretty sure the upcoming and intensifying wars are accepting the challenge.
So, sanctions do work, good to see.
Sanctions are just siege warfare using our trade influence to kill normal people in the hopes that the misery causes dissent against the government. Under anything but the “rules based order” they would be an act of war.
As a kid, I thought sanctions should be considered a war crime because they deliberately target non-combatants in order to cause suffering on a mass scale. As an adult, I still view it the same way. It’s cruel, and aimed at the people who have no control over what their governments do.
Get the fuck out of here you tankie roach.
How can you talk about “killing normal people” when you openly support the genocide of Ukrainians and russian imperialism in Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova.
This isn’t discussed enough, likely because it doesn’t have the shock and awe that war does, similar to how the relatively small amount of violent crime hits the news while all the vehicular deaths are mostly glossed over. They rarely actually have any effect on the rulers, yet they devastate the populace. Proponents say dumb shit like, “It will cause the people to rebel!” No, it won’t. When you and your children are sick and literally starving, it is difficult to organize resistance, not only physically but also mentally as your cognitive functions suffer as well. That’s also assuming that there is actually a fundamental issue with the government. Many times, sanctions are a cudgel used by western bullies against countries that won’t play ball with extractive economics or other harmful policies. Sometimes, the pain caused to the population is the point because they had the gall to elect leaders the bullies don’t like.
