Intelligence Squared

In partnership with GlobalSanctions.com, the world’s leading online resource for up to the minute information on sanctions and export controls worldwide. Sanctions have become one of the most widely used tools in modern foreign policy, imposed not only on states but also on individual leaders, oligarchs and corporations. From trade embargoes to asset freezes and travel bans, sanctions are deployed in response to everything from territorial aggression to human rights abuses. But do they actually work? Sanctions sceptics argue that they rarely achieve their goals and often inflict suffering on ordinary people while strengthening authoritarian regimes. Far from making unsavoury governments change course, they say, sanctions are little more than virtue signalling, allowing our leaders to appear resolute without doing the harder work of diplomacy or long-term strategic thinking. Proponents of sanctions counter that, when carefully targeted, sanctions can pressure both states and individuals without harming wider