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International sanctions are actions taken by countries against others for political reasons, either unilaterally or multilaterally. The effectiveness of sanctions is often in doubt, therefore it is a weak and often mixed form of political action. Serious scandals such as the UN's Oil for food program have emerged from poorly implemented sanctions.

Sanctions consist of three major forms:

• Diplomatic sanctions - the reduction or removal of diplomatic ties, such as embassies.
• Economic sanctions - typically a ban on trade, possibly limited to certain sectors such as armaments, or with certain exceptions (such as food and medicine)
• Military sanctions - military intervention

Economic sanctions are distinguished from trade sanctions, which are applied for purely economic reasons, and typically take the form of tariffs or similar measures, rather than bans on trade.

Diplomatic sanctions

As an example, the European Union imposed diplomatic sanctions on Cuba after the latter broke a moratorium on capital punishment in 2003. Measures included limitations on high-level government visits.

Economic sanctions

Economic sanctions can vary from imposing import duties on goods from, or blocking the export of certain goods to the target country, to a full naval blockade of its ports in an effort to verify, and curb or block specified imported goods.

Well known examples of economic sanctions include the United Nations sanctions against South Africa, United Nations sanctions against Iraq (1990-2003) and the United States embargo against Cuba (1961-present). South Africa is the typical case study for giving sanctions credibility, though that is a contentious claim itself.

Iraq sanctions

The United Nations and United States both imposed stringent economic sanctions on Iraq from Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990 until the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.

On May 13th 1998, the United States and Japan imposed economic sanctions on India, following its second round of nuclear tests.

Military sanctions

Similarly, military sanctions can range from carefully-targeted airborne assaults by bombers and military forces (such as Israel's 1981 bombing of Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor) to invasion and occupation. A less aggressive form of military sanctions could be the 15 year embargo on sales of F-16 fighter/bomber aircraft by the United States to Pakistan which ran from 1990 to 2005 in response to Pakistan's development of nuclear weapons. (The latter is considered a military sanction, not an economic one.)

See also

• Iraq sanctions | Oil-for-Food Programme
• United States embargo against Cuba

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