Name: Arpit Shukla , Pooja Tripathi
Country: India

Year: 2026
Volume: Volume-11, Issue-1, January-June 2026
Page Number: 850-860
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21769086

ABSTRACT
Economic sanctions are conventionally presented as a peaceful, rules-based alternative to armed conflict, deployed to enforce international norms and deter aggression without recourse to physical force. This paper interrogates that narrative by situating unilateral economic sanctions within the framework of structural political violence. Drawing on Johan Galtung's theory of structural violence, Hannah Arendt's distinction between power and violence, and critical and Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL), the paper argues that sanctions regimes, particularly those imposed extraterritorially by the United States and the European Union, function as an institutionalised and normalised form of coercion that disproportionately harms civilian populations while evading the accountability structures that govern conventional warfare. Drawing on the existing literature and documentary evidence relating to Syria, Iran, and Venezuela, the paper traces how sanctions regimes have produced currency collapse, medical shortages, and infrastructural decay, even as their strategic objectives have gone largely unmet. It further examines the discursive strategies through which sanctions are legitimised as humane and precise, and the gaps in international law that permit unilateral coercive measures to persist with minimal oversight. The paper concludes that reframing sanctions as structural political violence carries significant implications for international law, humanitarian ethics, and the future regulation of economic coercion in global governance.

Keywords: Economic sanctions, Structural violence, Political violence, International law, Humanitarian crisis