The use of coercive measures including economic sanctions has been favoured by certain, predominantly Western, states as an alternative to the use of armed force, asserting pressure to effect change at arm’s length via an apparently non-lethal use of force. Yet the assumption that the use of economic sanctions presents ‘non-lethal’ and ‘non-destructive’ solutions is a misapprehension. For the target state, the impact of multilateral and unilateral coercive measures (UCMs) on its humanitarian capacity can be long-term and devastating, and can be the cause, directly and indirectly, of the collateral damage of gross human rights and humanitarian violations. Concerns about the humanitarian implications of comprehensive sanctions (both multilateral and unilateral) have been well rehearsed, for example, in the wake of the consequences suffered by the general population of Iraq and Haiti in the 1990s.