The past decade has seen a significant shift in global sanctions. Teemed with a rise in counter terrorism and anti-money laundering regulations, this has resulted in financial sector over-compliance, or “de-risking”, and a reduction in activities of humanitarian organisations (the “chilling effect”).
This project will be the first empirical study to explore the following questions:
The project will design and conduct a detailed, anonymized survey with approximately 400 respondents working for major exporting food, medicine and vaccine companies dealing in the export of essential goods to sanctioned jurisdictions. It will include legal and compliance departments of each organisation and will be assisted by trade associations, which agree to circulate the survey to their networks and assist in its design. It will focus on areas such as latest trading patterns; challenges affecting such trade; informal tactics and best practices, and legal and regulatory framework guiding trade in heavily sanctioned jurisdictions.
This project will fill major gaps in the academic literature. It will identify better ways of securing the continuation of food and medicine delivery in contexts of humanitarian crisis thus providing urgently needed policy contributions. The elaboration of policy recommendations will be steered through multi-stakeholder focus groups, involving leading humanitarian non-state actors, social scientists and international law specialists. Through research articles, a policy report and multi-media dissemination, these policy recommendations will have particular relevance in light of the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent global recovery, due to the unique difficulties heavily sanctioned countries face in tackling the virus.
Erica Moret, Grégoire Mallard and Zachary Douglas outline a new research project focused on banking challenges in the international trade of vital goods and their humanitarian impact in sanctioned jurisdictions.
The Biden administration has boxed itself into a maximalist position that jeopardises efforts to make the Iran sanctions programme more humane. European governments should be pushed to change course.
Grégoire Mallard
Coordinator
Graduate Institute Geneva
Zachary Douglas
Co-Coordinator
Graduate Institute Geneva
Erica Moret
Principal Member
Graduate Institute Geneva
Jin Sun
Principal Member
Graduate Institute Geneva
Charlotte Beaucillon
Principal Member
University of Lille
Maria Shagina
Principal Member
University of Zurich
Emmanuela-Chiara Gilard
Principal Member
Oxford University
Esfandyar Batmanghelidj
Principal Member
Bourze & Bazaar
Swiss Network for
International Studies