UN Targeted Sanctions as Signals: Naming and Shaming or Naming and Stigmatizing?

Abstract

The imposition of sanctions inherently entails a process of both naming—identifying a target—and stigmatizing and potentially shaming that target. Publicly articulating a reason for the imposition of sanctions creates the possibility of a social response that can produce a stigmatizing or shaming of the target. This is particularly the case since the widespread move away from the application of comprehensive sanctions on an entire country to the targeting of sanctions on individuals, corporate entities, or sectors of an economy following the debacle over the unacceptably high humanitarian consequences of comprehensive UN sanctions imposed against Iraq during the 1990s.