Sanctions are one of the few tools at the disposal of the UN Security Council with which to address violent conflict, counter-terrorism, stem nuclear proliferation and deter violations of international law. The vast academic and policy-oriented literature on sanctions, however, has not fully captured the preventative effects of UN sanctions, nor how sanctions can be most effectively designed and applied in conflict settings alongside other tools.

To fill this gap, UNU-CPR undertakes a range of projects considering how UN sanctions can play a productive role in efforts to de-escalate conflict, cease hostilities and deter violations of human rights while minimizing their impact on humanitarian programming.

Through in-depth research of sanctions-related contexts and by bringing together different communities of practitioners that often work on distinct tools, the UN Sanctions research area seeks to explore these interlinkages and provide the Security Council, UN Secretariat, practitioners and other researchers with solid analysis of how to most effectively design and apply these tools. This work has received substantial interest and led to significant policy impact, with UNU-CPR researchers regularly being called upon to advise senior officials and brief high-level panels on their work.

Ongoing Projects

• UN Sanctions and Mediation 2.0: Moving from Evidence to Impact
• UN Sanctions and Humanitarian Action

Recent Projects

• Enhancing Due Process in UN Security Council Targeted Sanctions Regimes (2021)
• Due Process in UN Targeted Sanctions (2020)
• UN Sanctions and Mediation: Establishing Evidence to Inform Practice (2019)
• Protecting the Legitimacy and Effectiveness of UN Sanctions (2018)

Recent Briefings

• Nine Points on Designing UN Sanctions to Better Protect Humanitarian Activities (2020)
• UN Security Council on Working Methods and Sanctions (2019)
• Sanctions and Trafficking (2019)
• UN Security Council Arria Briefing: The Use of Sanctions in Addressing Sexual Violence in Conflict (2018)