The Dispatch

We often hear about countries sanctioning one another as a punitive measure in place of military action, to spare lives and civil infrastructure. But there is strong academic criticism of the effectiveness of sanctions, with a key concern being that, even broad economic actions can have disastrous consequences to real people just trying to live and work.

Some of these consequences are straightforward: sanctions can reduce access to fuel, food, power and so on, but they also impact some areas of society with wide reaching and lasting effects. Education, in particular, can suffer greatly, affecting lives in a worrying number of ways.

To be clear, sanctioning bodies, most often the US and their allies, but even the UN, have never explicitly targeted educational institutions or infrastructure. But given the trend of decreasing specificity of targets in favour of broad sectors and given the often-vague wording of official guidelines, education in a targeted country often suffers the consequences.

For example, during one of many rounds of sanctions the US placed on Iran, US entities were barred from engaging with Iranian government employees. Despite an exemption for academics and research staff, there was some confusion which impeded instances of international academic cooperation. Though, many critics of sanctions say this manner of disruption is not a bug, but a feature.

Shockingly, nearly all surveyed academics said sanctions impacted their ability to function professionally, citing issues including limitations to equipment, materials, software, lack of recognition by international publishers and restricted access to research data. The authors argue for post-sanction academic support and suggest countries imposing sanctions should consider reparative measures to assist affected academic institutions. Lifting sanctions would be a start, but the academic wounds inflicted run deep.

“Sanctions imposed on the Syrian Arab Republic have severely crippled the educational sector, hampering progress on many fronts. Remote meeting platforms, such as Zoom, do not permit access from Syrian IP addresses. The increased difficulty in obtaining visas and travel restrictions limits international academic collaboration,” says Associate Professor Marwan Al-Raeei of Damascus University, whose study of complex systems has contributed to dozens of papers indexed in Scopus, and who has witnessed for a long time the unambiguous detriment economic sanctions bring to education.

“Very recently, the US announced an end to their sanctions against Syria, and immediately, international organisations, ranking bodies, foreign researchers and Syrian academics abroad confirmed their readiness to collaborate and proceed with conferences or establish connections with researchers inside the country.”

Professor Al-Raeei also notes sanctions have grossly deprived the Syrian people of many daily life essentials, something which has forced a lot of researchers to prioritise obtaining basic needs over their academic pursuits and has pushed many abroad.

“The faculty of Damascus University plummeted from over 11,500 professors in 2010 to fewer than 3,000 by the end of 2022,” he says. “More than half its esteemed academic personnel have been driven out, stripping the institution of its core intellectual capital. Scholars eagerly await the concrete implementation of the new sanction relief measures, recognising their potential to unlock Syria’s academic and developmental potential.”

Opening in 2010, PUST is a one-of-a-kind university in the DPRK: it is both privately funded and explicitly international in its focus. It’s the result of a project started in 2001 by Dr Chin Kyung Kim and colleagues, and an example of North-South cooperation that feels like a glimmer of hope from a bygone era. Yet, despite setbacks to the DPRK, including the pandemic and increasing tensions with the US, PUST has not wavered from its original mission.

“I think the proverb, ‘Seeing is Believing’ is correct. I found many university professors I met in Pyongyang from abroad told me they had misconceptions about the DPRK and its higher education system. But PUST students have chances to meet Nobel Laureates, distinguished Scientists, Engineers, Humanitarians, and leaders in business,” says Professor Park.

“PUST faculty members teach not only hard skills but also soft skills such as ethics, virtues, love, respect and humility. The higher education sector in the DPRK also demonstrates superb creativity and diligence. They are very strong in mathematics and programming since they need to develop efficient algorithms because of poor access to hardware due to US and UN sanctions.”

It's not just the education sector of a targeted country that suffers at the invisible hand of sanctions, but the careers and lives of the individuals who comprise that sector too. Though sanctions are cited to compel democratic reforms or regime change and often target specific members of the targeted country’s political elite, critics such as Robert A. Pape argue sanctions disproportionately hurt ordinary citizens.

In warfare, such actions would be considered collective punishment, and the UN argues that broad economic sanctions exacerbate humanitarian crises, by restricting access to food, medicine and essential goods, for example in Venezuela in recent years. This criticism comes despite t the UN being responsible for some sanctioning itself, often in line with US foreign policy.

“The main objective of sanctions or unilateral coercive measures is a direct attack on the economy of the targeted state,” says Yolimar Mejías Escorcha, a Venezuelan industrial engineer and anti-sanction advocate.

“It is impossible to prevent harming innocents when sanctions are applied. And I don't believe the sanctioning country has an interest in preventing this.” .