When, prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Western leaders, especially Americans, tried to dissuade Putin from aggression, they evoked the prospect of severe, painful sanctions that Russia would bring on itself as an argument. The scarecrow of sanctions did not work. Putin chose war. So the West had no choice. Sanctions were introduced. Quickly, efficiently and comprehensively. As if unsure of their immediate effects, the West had to expand and exacerbate them step by step. Today, the eighth package is already on the negotiation table. And yet the opponents of sanctions in the West are raising their heads more and more boldly (even going out into the streets), pointing out that the sanctions are not working, that the ruble is holding stronger than before the war, that Russia is taking record revenues from oil and gas exports, that the bankruptcy of the Russian government has not happened that inflation there is at a lower level than in many European Union countries, and the decline in GDP is not even felt. Meanwhile, Europe will have to freeze due to the lack of gas and coal. Admittedly, experts argue that the sanctions are wreaking havoc, that Russia’s technological degeneration is progressing, and that the people will soon begin to experience Russia’s economic isolation first-hand. You just have to wait patiently. The ideological opponents of the sanctions question any influence they have on Putin’s behaviour, while inflicting a considerable cost to Western societies. Fortunately, the leaders of key Western countries and Western institutions continue to believe in the sanctions’ reasonableness. Because how else could they show their disagreement with Russia’s behaviour, and exert pressure on it? May they be determined.
The international environment is an environment without supreme power. Each country must answer for itself the question of how to react in the event of actions of partners who violate international standards, unlawfully harming its interests. The concepts of collective security refer to the imperative of collective action, which would force the violator of the standards to correct its behaviour. Collective action always ensures a more effective coercion. Of course, it is assumed that when exercising coercion, it is not necessary to resort to the argument of force and violence at once. Military action would be a last resort. Political and economic sanctions are always the first choice. In principle, they are to force their object to return to the application of norms and principles, to correct its own behaviour. They are often repressive in practice. They are a form of punishment for transgression.
The sanctions against Russia introduced by the West in 2022 in connection with its aggression against Ukraine are of an unprecedented nature in terms of severity and scope. Russia calls them illegal, which is not true. Russia suggests that only sanctions enacted by the UN Security Council would be legal. And the Security Council, because of the Russian veto, of course, would never pass any sanctions against Russia. Western sanctions are most legitimate without the Security Council.
International law provides for the possibility for the international community to use non-military coercive measures in the event of a state violating the norms of behaviour threatening international security and peace. Sanctions were inscribed as an instrument of pressure already in the Covenant of the League of Nations. In the Charter of the United Nations, the right to prescribe sanctions with universally binding effect was included in the competence of the Security Council in the context of acting ting in situations of threat to peace and security. Only the Security Council may order universally binding sanctions which every country must apply whether it likes it or not.
From 1966, the Security Council has introduced 30 sanction regimes. They included, inter alia, South Africa, former Yugoslavia, Haiti, DPRK, Iran, Iraq, Libya, South Sudan, Angola, Rwanda, but also terrorist organizations: Islamic State, Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Sanctions were imposed for aggression, terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, violations of human rights. But they were also introduced to facilitate a peaceful or democratic transformation. At the end of 2021, 14 sanction regimes were still in force. Several hundred organizations and individuals are included in the UN sanctions list.
Sanctions may be taken unilaterally by each state. As an expression of disapproval of behaviour that violates the norms of international law. And these are perfectly legal sanctions.
It is better, of course, to take sanctions collectively. The more they are undertaken collectively, the more they are anchored in the decisions of international organizations, the more they are credited with a stamp of legitimacy. But sanctions as an instrument of pressure can be used by everyone. Not only as a customary instrument of retaliation, i.e. retaliation in direct reaction to the wrongful actions of the other party. It is assumed, however, that the retaliation should remain within the law and comply with the principle of proportionality. Retribution, on the other hand, is unambiguously punitive and, by definition, includes severe retaliatory actions.
It is believed that sanctions are meant not so much to punish as to encourage to change the behaviour. They are to spare ordinary citizens and harm decision-makers. The concept of “smart sanctions” and “targeted sanctions” has been in use for almost thirty years.
Critics claim that sanctions usually do not work, do not bring the expected results, and do not change the political course of the state against whom they are taken. Why? The customary answers say that because they are as a rule not painful enough for states to abandon their imponderabilia of sovereignty. Because they are not strictly applied (there will always be someone who will want to make a profit politically or economically from avoiding them). Because those introducing sanctions are not ready to incur the related costs for them. Because sanctions are introduced more to appease the public opinion than for real political purposes. All this is true, but without sanctions, international politics cannot be credibly conducted in an environment which is characterized by anarchy.
It is considered that the example of the most effective application of sanctions was the case of South Africa and its apartheid policy. The international conclusion that the apartheid system was a system inconsistent with the values of the UN Charter came relatively late. The UN General Assembly passed a resolution recognizing apartheid as a violation of South Africa’s obligations under the United Nations Charter and a threat to peace and security as late as in 1962. Although as early as 1948 India made efforts at the UN to draw attention to racial discrimination in South Africa. A breakthrough in decolonization had to take place in the world, and above all in Africa, for the problem to be put on the UN agenda. It was the powerful wave of decolonization that forced the international community to condemn apartheid. At first, Western states were not willing to join the sanctions. Hence, initially, the sanctions lacked obligatory nature and the strict mandate of the Security Council. They were merely voluntary. For a long time, especially in Washington, it was feared that the fall of South African white community rule would open up space for communist infiltration and a pro-Soviet takeover of the country. Besides, in the southern US states, racial segregation was practiced in full swing. Mandatory sanctions against South Africa were introduced by the UN Security Council (arms embargo) only in 1977. Previously adopted resolutions (no. 191 or 282) only examined the possibility of sanctions or recommended them on a voluntary basis.
Moreover, the socialist states felt that the issue of fighting apartheid gives them a considerable political weapon and builds sympathy in the non-aligned movement. It was the USSR (and Guinea) that introduced the draft anti-apartheid convention in 1971, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1973. Most Western countries did not even sign the convention then. But in 1977, apartheid was already defined as a war crime in the Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions. The Statute of the International Criminal Court included apartheid as a crime against humanity and put it under its jurisdiction.
The boycott in the sphere of sport and culture started working earliest. As early as 1961, South Africa was removed from FIFA and in 1964 it was excluded from the Tokyo Olympics. In 1985, an international convention against apartheid in sport was drawn up. Cultural sanctions, although entirely voluntary, had an impact on the public opinion and made people aware of the regime’s isolation.
Calls for economic sanctions did not materialize until the 1980s, when the EEC introduced limited trade and financial restrictions, and the US passed the first comprehensive anti-apartheid bill in 1986. Credit embargoes by US banks led to a major financial and currency crisis in South Africa in the second half of the 1980s.
The breakthrough in dismantling apartheid did not come until the early 1990s. The fall of communism loosened the position of part of the white elite. And there is no shortage of opinions that the collapse of communism in Europe played a greater role in dismantling apartheid than isolation and sanctions. Because despite many restrictions, the South African economy was able to cope with the restrictions.
Apartheid has died out, but ethnic discrimination in other countries continues to touch our sensitivity from time to time.
In 2017, the Myanmar army led to the exile of 700,000 Arakans (Rohingya). There were many assessments that the scale of suffering and persecution allowed to use the term genocide in this context. Western countries’ attempt to condemn the crimes internationally did not bring satisfactory results. The UN General Assembly and the Human Rights Committee passed resolutions, but the UN Security Council was unable to come up with a common denominator in terms of not even imposing sanctions, but even ensuring the access of international observers and rapporteurs. Everything that was possible was an appropriate presidential statement. Also, Myanmar’s regional neighbours as part of ASEAN were not eager to condemn the Myanmar authorities. The International Criminal Court was luckily seized with the issue of. In 2020, the International Court of Justice urged the Myanmar government to ensure the security of the Rohingya. With no result.
One can hear also voices about ethnic persecution in Chinese Xinjiang. When the European Union decreed sanctions (against several individuals and one legal person) in connection with the persecution of the Uighurs in 2021, China responded with counter-sanctions that were clearly characterized by disproportionality.
Restrictive measures (sanctions) have become a canonical tool for conducting the common foreign policy of the European Union. The EU enforces about forty sanction regimes, and only a small part of them results from the obligation to implement the sanctions of the UN Security Council. It is the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Policy who initiates the sanctions. Prepared together with the Commission, they are discussed by the EU Council. Approved by the Council, they are implemented and supervised by the European Commission. The EU sanctions are much more stringent than the UN sanctions, because the Commission watches over their compliance, having real instruments for enforcing the desired behaviour by the Member States.
The Union has developed clear guidelines as to situations requiring the consideration of sanctions. They concern not only armed conflicts, violations of international law, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, terrorist and criminal activities, but also violations of human rights and the rule of law. It is customary to enact sanctions banning persons and institutions from entering the EU, freezing or confiscating financial resources (accounts), providing for trade restrictions (including embargoes on arms deliveries).
Collective sanctions taken by the Union are politically much more severe than if they were taken individually by the Member States. This concerned, for example, the sanctions taken against Russia in connection with the annexation of Crimea in 2014. Some governments of the Member States have suggested their relaxation, if not lifting, for years. They even distanced themselves in public, especially during visits to Moscow, but the pressure of the collective nature of the sanctions made them binding.
This EU sanctions discipline so irritated the leaders in the Kremlin that they unleashed a crisis in relations with the EU at the end of 2020 and led to an unprecedented humiliation in February 2021 of Josep Borrell, visiting Moscow. Russians tried not only to separate relations with the EU (bad) from relations with EU member states (with some states even flourishing), but to oppose them to each other. They realized very late that the Union is something more than an ordinary international organization, and by attacking the Union they provoke acts of defense by the member states. Which does not change the fact that the strategic goal of the present Russian leadership is the disintegration and destruction of the Union.
Sanctions are also taken by the Union with the full awareness that their effectiveness cannot be assessed through the prism of the ability to correct the policy of the state being the object of sanctions. The sanctions against Russia in 2014 did not lead to a change in Russia’s behaviour and did not prevent its criminal aggression against Ukraine in 2022. But they were an expression of disagreement with its behaviour. However, they were not severe enough. And they were inconsistent. This symbolic act of disagreement was diminished by the fact that Germany made to Russia a geopolitical gift in the form of the Nordstream gas pipeline. Nothing would have forced Russia to reflect more deeply than stopping this project. However, there was no political will to make the sanctions against Russia really severe then. As late as January and February 2022, when American intelligence revealed Russian invasion plans, Ukraine suggested to the West the so-called preventive sanctions. The idea was rejected, with the West limiting itself to threatening Russia with sanctions if a war was started. Putin started the war and the West ex abrupto came with immediate and painful sanctions. Much to Russia’s surprise.
If sanctions are the sticks on duty in reacting to the bad behaviour of others, then the obvious carrot, at least towards developing countries, is development aid. The European Union has also other incentives, e.g. in the form of association agreements, and in the case of geographically European countries: membership prospects (candidate status), but also trade preferences (GSP+ formula). Development aid is for at least a dozen or so countries a necessary condition for ensuring the state’s efficiency and economic modernization. The European Union provides more than half of global development aid. And acting like a preceptor rewards good behavior.
Development aid can, in certain cases, become a political lever. When I was the head of the EU Delegation in Armenia, in January 2016, the President of Armenia himself asked us to finance the installation of technologies that would help ensure a transparent and fair nature of the voting process in parliamentary elections. I was convinced that the European Union should respond positively. Never before has the EU been involved in such projects in the wide area of Europe. My co-workers were negative and my immediate superiors were simply afraid of responsibility (I waited for more than six weeks for instructions on this matter). However, I knew that my view would be endorsed by the political level, both in the EEAS and in the Commission (and it was). So I was acting. I felt that there was a chance to avoid the next wave of post-election destabilization that Armenia had experienced in the last two decades in political life. And if the rulers sincerely thought about the modernization of the power elite, they could ensure the necessary legitimacy for this process.
I formulated several political conditions towards the authorities, the most important of which was the requirement that the use of the technology should be agreed by the government with the opposition. The authorities resisted it for a long time, because they were afraid that their dialogue with the opposition would be treated as a symptom of weakness. The authorities and the opposition did not trust each other. In the end, I managed to bring them to the table and make them start a direct dialogue. It was highly confidential. Negotiators met secretly, in private apartments. An agreement was reached in early June 2016. Brussels confirmed its willingness to commit funds.
But in July, authorities withdrew from the project. The decision was purely political, although the pretext was used that the agreed system could not be technically put into service in time (i.e. until spring 2017). The authorities suggested holding elections on their terms (in a way which would be cheaper to implement, but it was rejected by the opposition). So I withdrew our support declarations as well.
At the end of August, however, the authorities unexpectedly changed the front and proposed a solution that, although technically not entirely satisfactory, was supplemented with the agreement to publish lists of voters (a demand from the opposition rejected by the government for years). And the opposition displayed readiness to accept such a deal. Negotiations resumed. Despite my skepticism about its effectiveness, an agreement was reached. This time it was the opposition who cared more than the government about our financial support for the elections. And the European Union kept its word (some member states and the USA also contributed).
The technology worked unscathed, but the way the elections were conducted produced quite a bad flavour. The authorities panicked a few weeks before the election date. Fearing defeat, they activated the entire mechanisms of electoral corruption and administrative pressure. They won elections, albeit in a dirty way. However, for the first time in many years, people after the elections did not go to the streets and did not demonstrate their disagreement with the results. This tempted the ruling party to act arrogant. They even denied EU representatives the right to express a critical opinion about the elections. I became the target of their attacks personally. Things went very far. I had to make decision-makers aware that attacking the European Union could turn against them. Indeed, the public in these open polemics unequivocally defended me. The authorities had to stop. It even happened that an interview already prepared for publication with one of the leaders of the ruling party in one of the newspapers, in which I was personally attacked, did not see the light of day. The paper edition of the newspaper where it was supposed to be published did not go to the points of sale.
The arrogance and disloyalty of the authorities damaged the government’s relations with the Union and came at a price. Failure to fulfill promises regarding the fight against corruption and reforms soon led the Union to stop the so-called budget support programs. For the Armenian government, these programs were an injection of direct transfers (amounting to many millions of euros) to the state budget. It was painful because it meant to be painful. It was only the Velvet Revolution of 2018 that changed the situation. The Union resumed these programs, supporting the reform efforts of the new government.
Sometimes sanctions are introduced for political reasons that are difficult to admit directly. So, sanctions are introduced under the pretense that they are not any sanctions. Rospotrebnadzor has become such a ministry of para-foreign affairs in Russia. In the last twenty years, its boss has announced more than once that Moldovan or Georgian wines do not meet the quality criteria for imports to Russia. After all, his decisions were to express dissatisfaction with the actions of Georgians or Moldovans, without calling it sanctions.
China has recently followed this pattern. China introduced, among others prohibitive tariffs on Australian wines after Australians criticized the actions of the Chinese authorities in relation to the COVID-19 epidemic.
And Lukashenka made mass and organized smuggling of migrants a counter-sanction against the European Union.
In diplomatic practice, the default doctrine of reacting to hostile acts by the other party is symmetry. If they expel our diplomats (even if they had grounds for it in the form of evidence of their behaviour inconsistent with the accreditation), we expel theirs, too (in equal numbers). We recall the ambassador for consultations to protest against their unpleasant actions, they can also recall theirs to emphasize that the offense is mutual.
And in general, it has become commonplace in the political practice of modern diplomatic relations to express dissatisfaction when necessary. Protest notes are written, the ambassador is summoned for a meeting, pre-scheduled visits or consultations are canceled, and at best tweeted with an appropriate comment. Even if it is about completely unintended facts. One has to show reaction. These are very often purely symbolic acts, but considered necessary. First of all, they are necessary from the point of view of the proper perception of government behaviour by own public opinion. Because they are required by the principle of sovereignty. In relations between countries that are close to each other, for example in the family of the European Union or even NATO, such acts are very inadequate. It is different if they concern the actions of a state with which relations are hostile or even tense. But within the same family of states cancel the summit because of the publication of caricatures in a provincial private newspaper? Summon the ambassador half an hour in advance because of statements by opposition politicians in his country? Such neuroticism is often a sign of being seized with inferiority syndromes and psychopathic reflexes. Making angry faces becomes a doctrine in itself. Looks familiar?
