Like Censorship And Surveillance - Sanctions Are Extralegal Corporate Crimes Against Persons

The US and its allies can impose sanctions without broad international support, and can claim that the “whole world” supports them, and nations can draw their own conclusions.  But these are not national sanctions. The SWIFT prohibition isn’t, the seizure of Russia’s FX assets wasn’t, and the EU not being a nation, none of the EU sanction packages were national or sovereign sanctions either. 

The US has actively and aggressively been trying to get other nations to hew to its Russia sanctions, see its threats to China, Saudi Arabia, India.  But it's not the government of the U.S. which has imposed any of its sanctions regime.

This is an important and insightful way of thinking about sanctions: Sanctions are beyond the Rule of Law and Due Process. For instance, this Russian or that Russian is sanctioned, absent any due process. I would also classify the actions against the Unvaccinated as sanctions, executive or bureaucratic orders without due process. Even if there might be fair and just due process, it is too late and expensive.

“Economic sanctions are the modern equivalent of ancient sieges, trying to starve populations into submission. The devastating impacts of sieges on access to food, health and other basic services are well-known.”  Sanctions are meant to hurt civilian populations–which makes them the tactic of choice of cowards unwilling to send in their own cannon fodder. Civilians dying in sanctioned countries don’t make it into U.S. newspapers–not when there are blond Ukrainians to photograph.

jomodevplus  |  Sanctions cut both ways
Unless approved by the UN Security Council (UNSC), sanctions are not authorized by international law. With Russia’s veto in the UNSC, unilateral sanctions by the US and its allies have surged following the Ukraine invasion.

During 1950-2016, ‘comprehensive’ trade sanctions have cut bilateral trade between sanctioning countries and their victims by 77% on average. The US has imposed more sanctions regimes, and for longer periods, than any other country.

Unilateral imposition of sanctions has accelerated over the past 15 years. During 1990-2005, the US imposed about a third of sanctions regimes around the world, with the European Union (EU) also significant.

The US has increased using sanctions since 2016, imposing them on more than 1,000 entities or individuals yearly, on average, from 2016 to 2020 – nearly 80% more than in 2008-2015. The one-term Trump administration raised the US share of all new sanctions to almost half from a third before.

During January-May 2022, 75 countries implemented 19,268 restrictive trade measures. Such measures on food and fertilizers (85%) greatly exceed those on raw materials and fuels (15%). Unsurprisingly, the world now faces less supplies and higher prices for fuel and food.

Monetary authorities have been raising interest rates to curb inflation, but such efforts do not address the main causes of higher prices now. Worse, they are likely to deepen and prolong stagnation, increasing the likelihood of ‘stagflation’.

Sanctions were supposed to bring Russia to its knees. But less than three months after the rouble plunged, its exchange rate is back to pre-war levels, rising from the ‘rouble rubble’ promised by Western economic warmongers. With enough public support, the Russian regime is in no hurry to submit to sanctions.