The Environmental Costs of Sanctions: Global Evidence

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

Department of Economics, Faculty of Economic and Administrative Sciences, University of Mazandaran, Babolsar, Iran.

10.22059/ier.2025.357906.1007692

Abstract

Depending on the amount and scope of the sanctions, the application of international sanctions to various countries can have a variety of environmental effects. Sanctions exert pressure on the environment for a variety of reasons, including making it difficult to access technology, destabilizing investment conditions in the field of enhancing productivity and advancing technology, and limiting the government’s ability to protect the environment. In this article, we investigate the impact of sanctions on the environment of sanctioned countries. We use the ecological footprint index as a comprehensive index to measure the amount of pressure on the environment and its destruction, and we seek an answer to the question of whether unilateral, multilateral, American, European, United Nations, economic, and non-economic international sanctions increase the intensity of the ecological footprint. In order to assess the research’s hypothesis, data from twenty countries subject to sanctions between 1992 and 2018 are utilized. The findings of this study indicate that various intensities of international sanctions have a direct correlation with the ecological footprint index.

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References

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Iranian Economic Review
Volume 29, Issue 2
June 2025
Pages 432-449

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