The sanctions regime, a diplomatic weapon as deadly as war

« Within the framework of the League of Nations, sanctions must serve to avoid war“, declared American President Woodrow Wilson at the time of the settlement of the First World War. A century later, the assessment of the sanctions regime, whose original aim was to maintain peace, security or punish behavior deemed illegitimate on the international scene, sends shivers down your spine: millions of civilian victims in the four corners of the planet.

A étude I brought it to you Center for Economic and Policy Research, based in Washington, DC, estimates that 38 million people died worldwide because of US and European economic sanctions between 1971 and 2021. The paper, published in 2025, studies, among other things, the health effects of sanctions imposed by United States and the European Union to 152 countries over the same period and affirms that unilateral sanctions have led to 564,258 deaths per year, or a little more than 28 million deaths in fifty years. All sanctions combined, the toll is climbing 776,610 deaths per year, more than half being children under 5 years old.

During the Cold War period, sanctions were essentially commercial in nature and targeted countries involved in geopolitical conflicts (Cuba, North Korea). In the 1990s, a period often referred to as the “sanctions decades”, and especially since the beginning of this century, a new type of sanctions was introduced with the aim of limiting the consequences on the population of the sanctioned country. These targeted sanctions, “Smart Sanctions”, are supposed to exclude essential goods or medicines.

However, over the past fifteen years, sanctions as a whole have increased significantly, mainly used by Western powers. The countries hit by sanctions represented 5% of the world economy in the 1960s and almost a quarter during the 2010 decade. As Joseph Ny, American theorist of power (1937-2025), asserts, with globalization, political actors tend to replace the threat of military sanctions with that of economic sanctions. And today, a third of the world economy is thus produced by sanctioned countries.

Les États-Unis, fer de lance des sanctions  

The EU, for example, imposed barely a hundred taxes in the year 2000. In 2024, the figure is higher than 5,000. The sanctions regime has never had the wind in its sails as much as today, and is mainly the work of the United States.

International sanctions, which include coercive measures that can be economic, diplomatic, military or symbolic, are initiated by different actors: international or regional organizations but also a single State.

And the United States are the pioneers in terms of so-called “unilateral” sanctions, this regime representing one of the key tools of their foreign policy: in 2023, 40% of sanctions applied in the world are of their own making, according to the Global Sanctions Database, while the UN is at the initiative of 30% of the sanctions and the European Union 20%. And according to the study carried out by The Lancet, the human toll of the sanctions launched by the United Nations is considerably less important than that from the United States, followed by the EU.Â

The populations, the first victims

Since 1962, for example, Washington has practiced an economic, commercial and financial blockade against Cuba, without taking into consideration the foreseeable humanitarian consequences and serious violations of human rights.

In March 2026, the World Health Organization warns of the situation «Âdeeply worrying » giving l’île, subject to more than six decades of the American bloc. «ÂHealth must be protected at all costs and never be at the mercy of geopolitics, energy blockades and power cuts, souligne alors Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus sur X (…) the country is struggling to maintain the delivery of health services at a time of immense turbulence, leading to energy shortages that affect health… Thousands of surgeries have been postponed over the past month, and people in need of care, from cancer patients to pregnant women preparing to childbirth, were put in danger due to the lack of electricity to operate medical equipment and ensure the cold chain for vaccines. »  

Also listenCuba: “The blockade has dramatic consequences on the Cuban population”

Sanctions therefore have a considerable impact on the populations, and mainly on the most vulnerable: shortages, inflation, increased unemployment and poverty are the lot of the inhabitants of the States under sanctions. Between 2015 and 2018, during the easing of sanctions against Iran following the signing of the Vienna nuclear agreement, inflation (more than 50%) fell to 10%.

The sanctions regime thus hits the populations head-on, and the figures speak for themselves. In Niger in 2023, the implementation of sanctions by the Economic Community of West African States (Cédéao) has a huge impact on the food security of the population, affirms the World Food Program (WFP). “The closure of borders has a direct impact on food supply operations. There is also the food situation which risks getting worse because these tensions will cause prices to increase. We also have humanitarian flights which are temporarily suspended due to the fuel shortage, but also the closure of airspace. And all this affects the humanitarian response », explain à l’époque sur RFIÂDjaounsede MadjiangarWFP communications manager in West and Central Africa.Â

In Afghanistan, Washington intends to bring down the regime by suffocating it through the freezing of its assets and various restrictive measures. In the columns ofOrient 21an independent journalist based in Kabul, estimates in 2023 that these restrictions have “contributed to the loss of more than 700,000 jobs. The Taliban leaders did not suffer in the least. It is ordinary citizens who pay the price, struggling to obtain cash and work, and having to choose between heating or feeding themselves in winter.HAS”. Some twenty million Afghans are facing acute food insecurity since the Americans fled, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. The consequences of the sanctions on the population are, in all the countries hit, much more dramatic for the most vulnerable than for the elites of the targeted countries.

Une efficacité limitée  

In the 1990s, following the sanctions imposed by the United Nations on Iraq during the invasion of Kuwait, the UN body set up, via resolution 986 of April 14, 1995, the “oil for food” program, a program which would be splashed by a gigantic case of corruption and embezzlement. Iraq is then subjected to a embargo which, month after month, worsens the living conditions of the population. Asked about the half-million children who died as a result of American sanctions, the United States Ambassador to the United Nations, Madeleine Albright, replied, in May 1996, that that…was worth it ».   

However, to be legal, sanctions must be proportionate: they must be necessary and adapted to achieving the aim, but they must also be as light as possible. If their negative consequences are significant for the country, then they are disproportionate and therefore illegal.

The effectiveness of sanctions is a divisive subject. On average, this diplomatic weapon achieves its full goals in just over a third of cases (nearly a quarter are total failures), according to the Global Sanctions Database. Sanctions are relatively more effective when they target modest policy changes than when they seek to bring about regime change or interrupt military action », note Sylvie Matellyeconomist and director of theJacques Delors Institute. 

If this regime has an impact on the targeted economies, its effectiveness in changing political behavior is therefore limited to say the least, mainly in authoritarian regimes. The sanctions imposed in 1964 on South Africa will contribute to the end of apartheid, but In Cuba, the regime is still in place and in North Korea, under sanctions since 1953, the nuclear program continues to develop.

Also, many countries under sanctions, which represent a third of the production of the world economy, manage to circumvent them. There Russiathe most sanctioned country in the world, but also the‘Iranmanage to sell their hydrocarbons but also to obtain supplies of various foodstuffs despite the obstacles, and local production is developing.

Effects opposite to those sought

According to a study published in The Conversationthe sanctions imposed by the United States between 1976 and 2012 on 34 states have generally worsened the situation in terms of human rights, even though a sanctions regime is justified by those who use it for different reasons, the first being the defense of human rights. And for these researchers, multilateral sanctions, carried by the UN, are no less detrimental to human rights than unilateral sanctions, mainly American.

For example, in September 2025, Washington announced the imposition ofsanctions à trois importantes organisations Palestinian human rights organizations: Al-Haq, Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights.These sanctions target human rights defenders seeking accountability, in extremely difficult circumstances, and follow sanctions previously imposed by the United States against ICC judges and prosecutors, as well as against a UN human rights expert, réagit aussitôt Liz Evenson, directrice du programme Justice internationale à Human Rights Watch. ICC member countries should denounce the growing efforts of the United States to weaken the principles of the rule of law globally, and the work of human rights defenders. These countries should support the adoption of statutes to block such efforts, and take other steps to protect the ICC, as well as the people who rely on the Court to deliver justice for the world’s worst atrocities.»Â

Furthermore, in Iran as in Russia sanctions tend to cause what diplomats callRally Around the Flag : a tendency of the population to increase their patriotic feeling and to become radicalized, then amplifying their support for the government in place targeted by the sanctions. Or the opposite effect of the objective sought by the donor of sanctions.

International sanctions, a favored tool of Western countries, have imposed themselves as an instrument, according to the established expression, “ between words and war“The sanctions regime is put in place by those who say they refuse to enter into direct military conflict or in support of an ongoing conflict. However, the study from the Center for Economic and Political Research, which highlights the need to rethink unilateral sanctions as a policy instrument foreign and highlights the importance of showing restraint in their use, alert: the number of deaths due to the sanctions regime, mainly American, is comparable to the total number of victims of armed conflicts. If sanctions do not necessarily save lives, they nevertheless kill a lot of them.