Ethical Aspects of Economic Sanctions : A Third Theory

Economic sanctions are intended to cause pain to the target country or, in the case of smart sanctions, to particular individuals or groups. Over the years, two basic views have emerged on the ethics of employing economic sanctions. One view applies utilitarian ethics to justify sanctions while another group applies utilitarian ethics to conclude that sanctions are generally not justifiable. Both of these groups also apply a version of rights theory. However, both groups of theorists apply an incomplete version of both utilitarian ethics and rights theory. The approach proposed in this paper employs a more complete approach that corrects for the deficiencies of the conventional wisdom