Economic sanctions are unethical and not effective

Even in instances where economic sanctions work, they are not actually effective. To be effective is to be successful in producing the desired or intended result. Unless the intended result of economic sanctions is to financially and economically hurt the civilians of a country, sanctions are not effective. Most citizens have little say in what their government chooses to do. Imposing sanctions simply punishes an entire group of people for the behavior of a couple powerful and wealthy leaders. Although sanctions that specifically target wealthy leaders cause much less collateral damage, they are not effective enough to justify their existence. These sanctions, such as those prohibiting banks from dealing with a given country, will freeze some of the assets of wealthy leaders.^[1] However, it will also freeze the assets of average citizens. The wealthy leaders can withstand long-term economic turmoil. The average citizen cannot. Simply put, sanctions are not effective enough to justify the collateral damage they cause to citizens.

[P1] Economic sanctions are tools to get world leaders to change their behavior, not to punish average citizens. [P2] However, they achieve only the inverse of this.