Multilateral sanctions revisited: lessons learned from Margaret Doxey

Abstract

Multilateral Sanctions Revisited: Lessons Learned from Margaret Doxey brings together a collective of 20 women authors to pay tribute to a pioneering female scholar of sanctions. The particularity of this work lies both in its exclusively female authorship and in the framework that the authors have derived from the lifelong conceptual research work of Margaret P. Doxey. Applied throughout the book, this framework decodes state behaviour as well as the current evolution of the practice of economic sanctions. The authors provide students of sanctions with a reminder of the definition and evolution of the key concept of multilateral sanctions, which help the reader to navigate through 281 well-researched pages of text. The first part of the book presents a precise analysis of the behaviour of each permanent member state of the United Nations Security Council in relation to using economic sanctions multilaterally, regionally and unilaterally. With a meticulous sense of detail, the authors expose the ins and outs of the political culture of each state, helping readers to understand the cautious or mixed use of sanctions by some states versus its extensive use by others. This case-by-case study of the propensity or reticence to use sanctions is a key contribution to the state of the art, since it is largely missing in the existing literature on economic sanctions. While the first part of the book focuses on the historical behaviour of the states, the second part of the book analyzes the rapid contemporary changes experienced in the practice of economic sanctions. At present, sanctions may be global, or highly targeted, or applied to specific fields such as cybersecurity and cryptocurrencies. Doxey’s research once again offers a framework for reading and deciphering topical phenomena such as cyber sanctions or the evasion of economic sanctions through digital technology. One of the key strengths of this book consists in drawing from the lessons of the past in order to decode the present and discuss prospects for the future. The authors extend Professor Doxey’s work by applying her analysis of economic sanctions to recently emerging themes. Navigating between tradition and innovation, the book provides a firm foundation for the state of the art and offers a thorough overview of multilateral sanctions from the point of view of the regimes that issue them (such as Russia), as well as an analysis of their nature and their field of application. In addition, it discusses the circumvention techniques that economic actors develop to avoid the effects of sanctions. The book contributes to our understanding—for academics, for students and for practitioners—of the complexities of both the political and economic stakes of sanctions. One limitation is that the authors do not fully construct the necessary bridge between the theoretical analysis and economic actors that would allow them to draw lessons from the research presented in this volume. If the economic sanctions primarily affect the targeted states, they also affect the economic world of private-sector actors and companies. A stronger bridge between theory and applied practice could have produced a guide for economic actors to current trends and risks in light of the evolving practice of sanctions.