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A paper accepted for an upcoming issue of the journal Earth's Future looks at the environmental implications of international sanctions imposed upon a country, and it does this by developing a generic causal model that explains how economic sanctions can impact the environment.

By targeting the economy of a sanctioned state, sanctions are used to force the sanctioned state’s policy makers to change their actions. But the impacts of economic sanctions on a country can go beyond its economic sector and can cause significant collateral damages to ordinary citizens and their economic welfare. Economic sanctions are also associated with significant unintended environmental impacts with major health, justice and human rights implications. This study explains how the current economic sanctioning schemes turn the environmental sector into an inevitable victim of the battle between the sanctioning states, seeking behavioral change through economic pressure, and the sanctioned state, determined to pursue its so-called “abnormal” plans at the expense of causing damages to its natural resources.

The author points out that exemptions to sanctions typically only cover humanitarian issues such as food and medicine and not environmental concerns, but resulting environmental damage can often long outlive the sanctions or extend beyond the borders of the nation being sanctioned. The author argues that attention should be given to what new schemes, mechanisms, reforms, and legal exemptions can be introduced to minimize the lasting environmental implications of economic sanctions.

DOI: 10.1029/2020EF001829