Sources
Help build the largest human-edited directory on the web.
Submit a site - Become an editor
Wikipedia. Licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Are you an expert in this subject? Join the discussion and share your knowledge at Wikipedia.org.
International sanctions
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
It has been suggested that this article be split into multiple articles accessible from a disambiguation page. (Discuss) |
International sanctions are actions taken by countries against others for political reasons, either unilaterally or multilaterally.
There are three types of sanctions.
- Diplomatic sanctions - the reduction or removal of diplomatic ties, such as embassies.
- Economic sanctions - typically a ban on trade, possibly limited to certain sectors such as armaments, or with certain exceptions (such as food and medicine)
- Military sanctions - military intervention
Economic sanctions are distinguished from trade sanctions, which are applied for purely economic reasons, and typically take the form of tariffs or similar measures, rather than bans on trade.
Contents |
As an example, the European Union imposed diplomatic sanctions on Cuba after the latter broke a moratorium on capital punishment in 2003. Measures included limitations on high-level government visits.[1]
Economic sanctions can vary from imposing import duties on goods from, or blocking the export of certain goods to the target country, to a full naval blockade of its ports in an effort to verify, and curb or block specified imported goods.
Well known examples of economic sanctions include the United Nations sanctions against South Africa, United Nations sanctions against Iraq (1990-2003) and the United States embargo against Cuba (1962-present). South Africa is the typical case study for giving sanctions credibility, though that is a contentious claim itself.
On May 13, 1998, the United States and Japan imposed economic sanctions on India, following its second round of nuclear tests.
Similarly, military sanctions can range from carefully-targeted airborne assaults by bombers and military forces (such as Israel's 1981 bombing of Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor) to invasion and occupation. A less aggressive form of military sanctions could be the 15 year embargo on sales of F-16 fighter/bomber aircraft by the United States to Pakistan which ran from 1990 to 2005 in response to Pakistan's development of nuclear weapons[2]. (The latter is considered a military sanction, not an economic one.)
