Economic Sanctions and Human Security: The Public Health Effect of Economic Sanctions

Abstract

Despite the abundance of country-specific evidence and policy debate on the humanitarian effects of sanctions, there has not been any crossnational empirical research that examines the human cost of sanctions. In this study, I offer a quantitative analysis of the effect that economic sanctions have on public health conditions in target countries. I use the child mortality rate among under five-year olds as a proxy for health status and utilize time-series cross-nation data for the 1970-2000 period. According to the results, the public health effect of sanctions is largely conditional on the extent to which economic coercion is costly on the target economy. The United States as a sender is also likely to increase the negative impact of sanctions on public health conditions. The economic wealth of target countries is unlikely to play any significant interactive role in mitigating the effect of economic coercion on public health. Similarly, the involvement of an intergovernmental organization (IGO) in sanction imposition has no discernable impact on child mortality.

Economic sanctions and official ethnic discrimination in target countries, 1950–2003

“…With the growing global awareness of the humanitarian effects of sanctions in Iraq, Haiti, and the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, scholars have devoted more attention to the possible inadvertent consequences of economic coercion. Studies show that external economic pressures might worsen public health conditions, economic well-being, and physical security of the populace in target countries (Cortright and Lopez 1995;Weiss et al 1997;Gibbons 1999;Weiss 1999;Heine-Ellison 2001;Lektzian 2003;Peksen 2011). Some researchers find that sanctions induce the target government to commit more political repression to consolidate its authority (Peksen 2009;Peksen and Drury 2010).…”

Economic sanctions and child HIV

“…And as Kidman and Anglewicz find, orphans who lose their mother or both parents are two to three times more likely to become HIV infected. While sanction literature finds negative effects of sanctioning on health and marginalized populations, little research has examined the effects on child HIV. Using time‐series cross‐section (TSCS) data from 1990 to 2012, this study aims to reveal the impacts of sanctions on children's acquisition of HIV and to contribute to the literature on both sanctions and children's health.…”

Sanctioned to Death? The Impact of Economic Sanctions on Life Expectancy and Its Gender Gap

“…So far, only few empirical studies have analyzed the health effects of economic sanctions. Peksen (2011) focuses on child mortality rates as the dependent variable and does not at all address concerns about endogeneity. Allen and Lektzian (2013) is the only study we are aware of that estimates, among many other things, the effect of sanctions on life expectancy.…”