Yesterday, the UK’s Treasury Committee announced it’s latest inquiry: “are the UK’s financial sanctions on Russia working?”
Whether the sanctions are working hinges on what their goal. By the Committee’s standards, Britain’s sanctions will only have been successful if they’ve hampered Putin’s ability to fund his armed forces, raising the odds of Ukraine winning.
Suppose that’s the measure of success (and not, say, that the sanctions count as successful if they hamper Putin’s ability to fund his armed forces or if they indirectly deter China from invading Taiwan in the near future.) Here’s an equally important question: are the sanctions morally permissible?
I’m inclined to think they are, at least given four assumptions: that Russia’s invasion was unjust, that Ukraine winning is desirable, that Western sanctions—together with other policies—make it substantially more likely Ukraine wins, and that the sanctions—while burdensome—aren’t ridiculously burdensome on Russian citizens (and on innocent non-Russians whose economic fortunes are tied up with Russia’s).
Begin with the bread and butter: targeted asset freezes against Russia’s state officials are trivially easy to justify. Officials who are actively, culpably complicit in an unjust war have forfeited their right to yachts, bank accounts, and other financial assets. If there’s even a small chance that asset freezes—coupled with other policies—will shorten the war/boost Ukraine’s chances, sanctioning state officials seems straightforwardly permissible.
Sanctions that harm citizens, though, aren’t so easy to justify. Here’s a reasonable-looking argument:
If many/most Russian’s aren’t responsible for Russia’s invasion, sanctioning them violates their economic rights.
Many/most Russians aren’t responsible for Russia’s invasion.
Therefore, sanctioning them unjustly violates the economic rights of many/most Russians.
By my lights, premise (2) is pretty obvious. Even if you think the Russians who voted for Putin in 2018 are morally responsible for the Ukraine invasion—a claim I broadly deny—and that these Russians constituted a genuine electoral majority, there are still going to be many Russians who aren’t responsible by anyone’s metric.
Premise (1) is where the trouble starts. Consider the following example from philosopher Cecile Fabre, featuring—creatively—a defender named ‘Defender’, a rescuer named ‘Rescuer’, an attacker named ‘Attacker’, and a bystander named ‘Bystander’:
Suppose that Defender needs Rescuer’s help against Attacker’s lethal attack. Rescuer shoots at Attacker while running toward him, thereby knocking Bystander over. Bystander is under a duty to allow himself to be knocked over instead of stopping Rescuer in her tracks, thereby preventing her from saving Defender.1
Fabre’s verdict seems based. If someone is being unjustly attacked, and the only way you can stop the attack is by imposing a real but not-too-ridiculous cost on an innocent bystander (knocking them down, say, or hiking the price of their groceries), that seems fine to do.
Note, though, that the cost you’re allowed to impose on the innocent bystander can’t be ridiculously high. If the only way you can save someone from being unjustly attacked is to chop off an innocent bystander’s legs, or make them and their family destitute, it doesn’t seem like you’re allowed to do that, because it doesn’t seem like the bystander would be obligated to make themselves destitute or give up their legs—even to prevent someone’s murder.
This intuition in hand, the application to wide sanctions on Russia’s economy is obvious: an attacker—Russia—is unjustly killing/threatening to kill Ukrainians; the US, UK, and other sender states are trying to prevent future killings by way of wide economic sanctions, but an inevitable by-product of their sanctions policy is that innocent Russians are harmed.
Yet just as the innocent bystander in Fabre’s case is under an obligation to let the rescuer knock him down, ordinary Russians are under an obligation to take a moderate economic hit from Western sanctions. This makes it OK—in principle, at least—for the West to impose said sanctions, so long as they’re not too ridiculous.
Fabre, C. (2018). Economic statecraft: Human rights, sanctions, and conditionality. Harvard University Press. p. 58.
There is a fascinating parallel to this philosophical construction in the "Trading With The Enemy Act" of 1917, the law, modeled after the British law, since amended many times, that made possible the US sanctions regime (also a time of refreshing candor in the naming of Laws).
Congress authorized the taking of enemy property during war time (i.e. only the Defender may harm the Bystander, not some Rescuer). This was later amended to allow taking property of non-enemy countries and during peace time. To forestall Attackers-to-be, as it were.
There were debates on what the source of this authority is (what part of the Constitution), how much can be delegated to the President, what rights do the original property owners retain (does the Bystander have claims in the future) and so on.
A law review article from 1943 concludes with "Whether the form it took
was really necessary and expedient and politically wise, only the future will show. The enlightened character of the administration is an assurance of the prudent use of this extraordinary measure."
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/chapter-53
[PDF] https://repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi%3Farticle%3D9642%26context%3Dmlr&ved=2ahUKEwi88ZvXmtKEAxV0EmIAHXWyBdkQFnoECBUQAQ&usg=AOvVaw1RL2ncVlETV4BB3SilWIbG