THE IMPACT OF ECONOMIC SANCTIONS ON HUMAN RIGHTS PROTECTION: A CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF TARGETED COUNTRIES

Abstract

Economic sanctions are claimed to be imposed on the targeted countries to ensure human rights. This paper aims to evaluate the impact of economic sanctions on human rights to justify the human rights situation in the sanctioned nations. It has used data from 40 different countries during 1976-2019 and applied the Ordinal Logit Regression Model to analyse the data. The paper found that economic sanctions exacerbated the human rights condition in the targeted nations whereas burgeoning GDP and democratic situation leads to progress the human rights situations. These results are consistent and robust to Ordinal Probit Regression Model and support alternate hypothesis. The findings argue against the popular beliefs of the sanctioning countries and organizations that economic sanctions improve human rights in the imposed countries. So, policymakers and international leaders should rethink and reconsider their decisions before imposing economic sanctions on any country. The imposition and use of economic sanctions create a lot of misery for the general public which further threatens the human rights protection in the targeted countries.