January 23, 2023
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Senior Scholar Richard Nephew assesses the unintended consequences of sanctions and explores to what degree such consequences should be considered when formulating statecraft. Using the case of U.S. sanctions against Iran–which were first imposed in 1996 in the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act (ILSA) and followed up by the comprehensive embargo against Iran erected by President Clinton–Nephew examines whether these sanctions had a discernible, deleterious impact on Pakistan and its energy firms, as a result of a diminished Iranian natural gas sector.
Nephew concludes that Pakistan was harmed by the imposition of sanctions against Iran, but that it is impossible to ascertain how much the effectiveness of the sanctions regime would have been impaired in their absence. Based on his analysis, he offers three over-arching recommendations for policymakers considering the use of sanctions:
A major military engagement could occur in the Asia-Pacific region in the form of a possible conflict between the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and the ensuing war have also spurred grave environmental and climate-related concerns.
In June 2022, the government of South Sudan acknowledged that Egypt had delivered equipment for resuming its long-dormant Jonglei Canal megaproject by dredging tributaries of the White Nile.