Sanctions in Latin America

For over six decades different types of economic sanctions have been imposed on a range of countries from Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) to force, persuade, influence, or cajole their governments into doing some things and not doing others. Sanctions have been designed to force governments and others to defend business interests, seek the restoration or support of democracy, respect human rights, protect the environment, fight corruption, or tackle international crime. By a very large margin the greatest number of sanctions have been applied by the United States, which appears to be using them much more frequently than before, and increasingly as a central instrument of its foreign policy. The United Nations (UN) and the European Union (EU) have also used sanctions. With a few exceptions, LAC countries have been mainly at the receiving, rather than at the originating and imposing end of the sanctions business.