The Global Governance Centre is pleased to announce the release of a new publication by the Carter Center: Sanctions Relaxation and Conflict Resolution: Lessons from Past Sanctions Regimes.

This paper is authored by three Graduate Institute researchers affiliated with the Global Governance Centre:  Zuzana Hudáková, Research Associate; Thomas Biersteker, Gasteyger Professor Honoraire; and Erica Moret, Visiting Professor. 

While most sanctions research focuses on the design, threat, imposition, implementation, monitoring, or effectiveness of sanctions, far less attention has been devoted to understanding how sanctions end or how sanctions relaxation can be utilized to pursue different policy objectives, including negotiated settlements of conflicts.

Focusing on the use of sanctions relaxation for conflict resolution, this paper identifies elements of sanctions relief on a continuum covering:

1. initial gestures of goodwill; 
2. relaxation of implementation at the national level;
3. easing of sanctions exemptions;
4. adjustments to sanctions measures;
5. suspensions; and
6. partial liftings to full termination of all imposed sanctions.

The paper examines eleven cases of sanctions relaxation by the United Nations, the European Union, and the United States and groups them according to the core logics of different approaches to relaxation.

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