US sanctions kill half a million people a year worldwide

Виктор Сизов • 06.01.2026, 15:50 • Politics

In a study conducted by scientists from the University of Denver and the Center for Economic Policy, it was found that international sanctions have a significant negative impact on mortality rates in the countries to which they are applied. This analysis, published in The Lancet Global Health, for the first time identified causal relationships between the imposition of sanctions and increased mortality among various age groups.

Francisco Rodríguez, Silvio Rendón, and Mark Weisbrot analyzed data from 152 countries over the period from 1971 to 2021, applying various analytical methods such as entropy balancing and causality tests.

Destructive Impact of Unilateral Sanctions

The study showed that the most destructive impact was caused by unilateral economic sanctions, especially those imposed by the United States. In contrast, sanctions imposed by the UN did not demonstrate statistically significant effects on mortality rates. This is due to the fact that UN decisions are subject to more rigorous public scrutiny.

Mortality due to sanctions varied across age groups: an increase of 8.4% was noted among children under 5 years old, while for elderly people aged 60–80, this figure was only 2.4%. The most vulnerable were the youngest.

Analysis of the dynamics showed that the impact of sanctions on mortality rates intensifies over time. For example, in the case of infant mortality, there is an increase of 5.8% in the first three years, 8.1% during the 4–6 year period, and 10% after seven or more years following the imposition of sanctions.

Half a Million Human Lives

According to the authors' calculations, unilateral sanctions lead to the deaths of 564,258 people annually (with a confidence interval of 367,838–760,677). This figure is comparable to global losses from armed conflicts and significantly exceeds the average annual number of casualties from military actions (106,000 deaths per year).

Sanctions most severely affect children: 51% of all deaths from sanctions between 1970 and 2021 were among children under five years old. In total, 77% of the victims belong to the age groups 0–15 and 60–80 years, which traditionally do not fall within the working population.

The analysis utilized data from the Global Sanctions Database (GSDB), which represents the most comprehensive and up-to-date collection of information on sanctions. The study covered sanctions imposed by the US, the European Union, and the UN, which have significant influence on the global economy.

Mechanisms of Impact

Sanctions negatively affect public health through several channels. First, they lead to a deterioration of public healthcare due to reduced budget revenues. Second, restrictions on foreign currency inflows hinder the import of vital goods such as medicines and food.

Moreover, sanctions create barriers for humanitarian organizations, which also complicates their operations in the affected countries.

American sanctions have proven particularly devastating, as they are often aimed at changing political behavior or regime change, which is sometimes seen as an acceptable price to achieve these goals.

There are numerous mechanisms that amplify the economic and humanitarian consequences of sanctions, including the dominance of the dollar and euro in international trade and the extraterritorial application of sanctions, especially by the US.

Increase in the Use of Sanctions

Over the past decades, the use of economic sanctions has significantly increased. According to the Global Sanctions Database, 25% of countries were subjected to sanctions by the US, EU, or UN between 2010 and 2022, whereas in the 1960s this figure was only 8%.

The share of the global economy affected by unilateral sanctions increased from 5.4% in the 1960s to 24.7% during the period from 2010 to 2022, which is associated with the rise in the number of sanctions aimed at ending conflicts, protecting human rights, and promoting democracy.

Different types of sanctions show varying levels of impact: unilateral sanctions affect all age groups, while UN sanctions do not show statistically significant effects.

Research Methodology

The authors employed a variety of methods to address questions of causality using observational data. Entropy balancing allowed for the reproduction of the characteristics of control groups, while event studies analyzed the evolution of effects over time.

Granger causality tests were used for the analysis of temporal precedence, and instrumental variables were employed as exogenous sources of variation. The instruments for unilateral sanctions were based on the degrees of similarity in political positions between the target country and potential sanctioning states.

These instruments were based on indices of foreign policy preferences developed by Bailey, Streznev, and Foten, who applied dynamic models to analyze voting in the UN General Assembly from 1946 to 2022.

Ethical Aspects

The results of the study raise important questions about the role of economic and unilateral sanctions in international politics. Given the increasing use of such measures, the ethical frameworks for assessing their impact are becoming increasingly relevant.

Evidence of loss of human life due to sanctions should serve as sufficient grounds for abandoning their use. Ethical analysis should take into account not only data on losses but also the effectiveness of sanctions in achieving their stated goals.

The study also contributes to a broader discussion about the possibility of redesigning sanctions to minimize their negative humanitarian consequences. It is important to note that while unilateral sanctions are associated with increased mortality, UN sanctions are not.

This finding may be explained by the more stringent public scrutiny that UN decisions are subjected to as an international council involving target countries. However, it is essential to consider this with caution.

Limitations of the Study

The limitations of this study are related to the use of non-experimental data to assess political interventions. The authors identified specific limitations of each method, including potential biases and inconsistencies in estimates, as well as anticipatory effects.

The instruments used by the authors are considered plausibly exogenous determinants of unilateral sanctions, uncorrelated with non-sanction-related mortality factors. There is no obvious mechanism through which political positions could influence domestic health conditions.

Although countries' foreign policy positions may correlate with poor decisions leading to increased mortality, the estimated coefficients for sanctions remain significant in most specifications even when accounting for trade and macroeconomic policy measures.

Over time, the nature of sanctions has changed, and the recent increase in their intensity may indicate that the criteria for their application will change in the future.

Woodrow Wilson once said that sanctions are "something more terrible than war." The results of this study confirm this statement: over the last decade, unilateral sanctions have caused about 560,000 deaths annually worldwide. It is difficult to find other political measures with such devastating consequences for human life.

AI Opinion

From a data analysis perspective, the study raises an interesting paradox of modern diplomacy: sanctions, as a tool of "soft power," have an impact comparable to military conflicts. Historical examples, such as Napoleon's Continental Blockade or the economic isolation of South Africa, highlight the dilemma: is it worth inflicting suffering on the innocent for political goals?

Macroeconomic analysis reveals another side of the issue. Sanctions contribute to the emergence of a "shadow economy" in international relations, creating alternative payment systems and trade routes. The paradox is that the attempt to isolate some countries may lead to the integration of others. Perhaps the long-term effect of sanctions will not be a change in the policies of target countries, but rather the fragmentation of the global financial system into competing blocs.

Source: hashtelegraph.com

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