Dozens of countries and thousands of individuals and entities around the world are currently entangled in a complex web of multilateral sanctions imposed by the United Nations, or unilateral sanctions imposed by powerful Western nations like the United States and the European Union. Demonstratively, most of these sanctions are targeted at states, entities, and individuals in less developed countries. Genuine questions can, therefore, be asked about the legitimacy and legality of these sanctions, as well as who benefits and who suffers because of them.

There is, however, nothing new about sanctions – even ancient Greeks were familiar with them. Pericles's Megarian Decree, issued in 432 BC, in response to the kidnapping of three Aspasian women, is perhaps the oldest example of sanctions in recorded history. Up until World War I, sanctions were indeed a routine part of warfare.

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Sanctions on RAB: Does it reflect a changing US foreign policy?

But as the international community matured in its efforts to prevent war, the imperatives for using sanctions shifted. And since WWI, in matters of breach of international law and order, non-lethal sanctions, such as economic and financial sanctions, have evolved into legitimate instruments of international law enforcement.

As both individual states as well as the UN and other international bodies began imposing sanctions in cases of breach of international law, instead of declaring war against wrongful actions, economic sanctions have received greater legitimacy around the world especially since WWII.

The United States, the most prolific enforcer of unilateral sanctions in the world, currently has sanctions in place against more than 20 countries. Most of these countries are among the poorest in the world, and having been cut-off from the global economic and financial systems, many of them are unable to provide essential food and medicines to their populations.

Most US sanctions are equipped with extraterritorial legal effect and enforcement capabilities. Among others, they require banks and corporations around the world to avoid business transactions with individuals, entities, and states under its lists. As a result, every domestic and international bank that seeks to do business with US banks must now screen US sanction targets as a part of their normal compliance programme. Violators of such regulatory outreach often pay steep penalties.

Much of US' sanctions are underpinned by the almighty US dollar. Despite major structural shifts in the international monetary system over the past six decades – such as the emergence of digital currencies and new payments ecosystems, and the emergence of new reserve currencies such as the Euro and Chinese renminbi – in all practical purposes, the US dollar still reigns supreme in global economic and financial transactions. Moreover, attempts of several countries such as China, Iran and Russia, to avoid transactions in US dollars have failed to make much dent in its status as the world's reserve currency.

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US sanction on Rab members

Considerable debate exists over the effectiveness of economic sanctions. There have been some success stories. For example, US sanctions helped to topple Haiti's Duvalier in 1986, Uganda's Idi Amin in 1979, Chile's Allende in 1973, and the Dominican Republic's Trujillo in 1961. The threat of US sanctions also helped to discourage South Korea from acquiring a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in 1976, in freeing US hostages from Iran in 1981, and forcing the country to come to the negotiating table in 2012. But, overall, most of the sanctions have hardly succeeded in achieving their professed goal – and more-often than not, they end up causing massive harm to the people of the targeted states.

Former UN Secretary General, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, once described sanctions as "blunt instruments and legitimate means to exert pressure on political leaders whose behaviour is unlikely to be affected by the plight of their subject." Boutros-Ghali is partially right – sanctions are indeed blunt instruments, but they are not always legitimate. There had indeed been many instances whereby the imposition of sanctions had either been unregulated or based on questionable legality or legitimacy. Think about the completely unjustified comprehensive sanctions imposed on Iraq in the 1990s by the US, which cost at least one million lives, including the death of over half a million infants.

Dr CAF Dowlah, a former professor of economics with the City University of New York is currently working on extraterritorial application of US economic and financial sanctions at Columbia University Law School, New York.