Global sanctions are powerful tools in international politics, offering non-violent means to enforce norms, protect security interests, and uphold the principles of international law. However, their effectiveness varies and they must be carefully designed and implemented to avoid adverse side effects.
Sanctions are often accompanied by competing claims about their political and economic purpose. Policymakers, caught up in the excitement of announcing them, often make ambitious claims about regime change, defending human rights or reversing the course of war. But these claims are not always backed up by the evidence and a lack of transparent data about the impact of sanctions undermines public perceptions of their efficacy.
While a wide range of factors explain the variation in sanction effectiveness, many of the key determinants are structural and related to the evolution of the global economic environment. Greater integration of world economies has widened the avenues through which sanction shocks can spread globally. As a result, today’s sanctions cause more substantial trade losses and risks than ever before.
Nevertheless, the effectiveness of global sanctions will depend on their ability to target the right entities and overcome barriers to success. The challenge of achieving this goal remains complex, and requires continuous monitoring and adaptive strategies to ensure that sanctions remain relevant in a dynamic and evolving geopolitical landscape. Fincom’s multilingual technology helps to address this challenge by matching names across 44 languages and original scripts — overcoming spelling variations, transliterations and other linguistic complexities that complicate sanctions screening.