Abstract

Economic sanctions are rapidly becoming one of the major tools of international governance of the post-Cold War era. The UN Security Council, empowered under Article 16 of the UN Charter to use economic measures to address "threats of aggression" and "breaches of peace," approved partial or comprehensive sanctions on only two occasions from 1945 to 1990. By contrast, since 1990 the Security Council has imposed sanctions on eleven nations, including the former Yugoslavia, Libya, Somalia, Liberia, Haiti, and several other nations. However, the U.S. has imposed sanctions, unilaterally or with other nations, far more frequently than any other nation in the world, or any multinational body in the world, including the United Nations. More than two-thirds of the sixty-plus sanctions cases between 1945 were initiated and maintained by the United States, and three-quarters of these cases involved unilateral U.S. action without significant participation by other countries.Thus, while the question of ethical legitimacy has implications for the UN strategies of international governance, it has far greater implications for the U.S., which uses sanctions more frequently and in many more contexts, from trade regimes and human rights enforcement to its efforts to maintain regional and global hegemony.

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