There is widespread consensus amongst scholars that sanctions—the deliberate withdrawal of customary trade and financial relations—do not work. Despite this perception, states are deploying sanctions at an increasing rate. This Article explains this paradox by arguing the predominant notion of sanctions’ utility employed by scholars is unduly constrained, narrowly focusing on the ability of such measures to modify the behavior of sanctioned parties while disregarding the alternative benefits this instrument can deliver. To support this argument, this Article uses export controls on luxury goods deployed in connection with the Russo–Ukraine War as a case study. Under prevailing perceptions of sanctions’ utility, these measures would be considered unsuccessful on their face—it is unlikely constraining access to luxury goods would end the war. Yet the export controls were levied nonetheless. To explain the deployment of these and other sanctions, this Article asserts sanctions offer a wide range of benefits beyond behavioral modification. Drawing on international relations theory, it examines how such measures can be used to shape international law, send important messages to domestic and foreign audiences, internalize international norms amongst domestic constituencies, and impact the relative balance of power between sanctioned and sanctioner. In doing so, this Article offers a descriptive account that not only explains the contradiction at the heart of sanctions usage—a contradiction prevailing discourse has not meaningfully addressed—but presents a starting point for a paradigm shift in conceptions of sanctions’ utility that will enable a more pragmatic understanding, evaluation, and usage of sanctions.
