The morality of economic sanctions has been subject to considerable academic and policy debate since the well-publicized humanitarian effects of comprehensive economic sanctions against Iraq in the 1990s. Scholars have also dealt with the ethics of attaching conditions to economic aid and loans offered by countries and international financial institutions. Cécile Fabre’s book, Economic Statecraft, is a significant contribution to these bodies of scholarship. It offers an excellent discussion of whether and under what circumstances states and international organizations are morally justified in using economic sanctions, conditional aid, and conditional lending to protect human rights in repressive states. As opposed to much of the earlier literature that questions the morality of the use of economic statecraft, the main thesis of this book is that sovereign actors unilaterally or collectively are sometimes morally justified—and even sometimes obliged—to resort to economic means to protect human rights. The use of these means, however, is subject to the constraints of proportionality, necessity, and effectiveness. That is, according to Fabre, economic sanctions, conditional aid, and conditional lending are morally acceptable instruments to enforce human rights if their use does not harm humanitarian conditions, is not disproportionately costly to the innocent, and is deemed effective. Economic statecraft is less justifiable in the circumstances where there is significant uncertainty regarding the possible effectiveness and consequences of foreign economic interventions for target countries.

Chapters 2 and 3 focus on the morality of primary and secondary economic sanctions. In Chapter 2, Fabre recognizes the possibility that comprehensive sanctions could disproportionately hurt the innocent in target countries and often fail to achieve their policy objectives. The author, however, contends that the possible adverse effect of sanctions on those who are not directly involved in the wrongdoing is not sufficient grounds to prevent sanctioning countries from using sanctions to stop and deter human rights abuses. Yet, given the possible major humanitarian costs and relatively low success rate of comprehensive sanctions, she still favors “highly targeted sanctions, both with respect to their objects and with respect to the individuals to whom they apply” (p. 62). Targeted sanctions, she claims, are a more favorable response to human rights abuses because they are more likely to meet the imperatives of proportionality, necessity, and effectiveness.

Chapter 3, which is arguably the most novel part of the book, focuses on the morality of secondary or extraterritorial sanctions to enforce human rights. Secondary sanctions are directed at third-party states and nonstate entities outside the jurisdiction of sender countries that have economic ties with the target. These secondary measures are used with the intention of amplifying the effect of primary sanctions by minimizing sanctions busting by third-party actors whose economic ties with the target might at least indirectly contribute to poor human rights conditions in target countries. Fabre convincingly argues that secondary sanctions are ethically justifiable to block and deter human rights abuses in target countries. She makes a strong case that, from a moral standpoint, if human rights are universal, a commitment to human rights means a universal commitment to their enforcement, regardless of concerns over the sovereign equality between countries and the principle of noninterference in the internal affairs of other states.

Chapter 4 examines the ethics of conditional aid. The author conceptualizes aid conditionality as the attachment of human-rights–based conditions and the decision to withhold or withdraw financial or technical assistance in response to the recipient’s failure to fulfill its human rights obligations. Fabre posits that conditional aid is morally acceptable to the extent that it increases the likelihood that assistance will benefit those who are the rightful recipients of it and will be effective in the long term. In defense of conditional assistance, Fabre also suggests that “the fact that aid conditionality is not effective does not suffice to show that it is morally unjustified” (p. 126).

Chapter 5 discusses the morality of both conditional loans and conditional debt relief as a way to enforce human rights. Fabre offers a very helpful discussion of the key differences between just lending, which refers to cases where a lender is under a “first-best obligation,” and unjust lending, which are the cases where a lender is not morally obliged to provide a loan, because it instead should extend the financial support for free. Similar to the defense of conditional aid, the author’s overall argument is that both just and unjust loans and the cancellation of debts can be conditioned on the recipient’s human rights record.

Fabre’s qualified defense of the morality of economic statecraft is quite convincing. It challenges the common discourse among skeptics of economic statecraft that foreign economic tools are unethical means of advancing human rights in part because they might cause more harm than good. Although the book expresses a favorable view of economic statecraft, Fabre also admits that sanctions and conditional assistance are morally justified “only in a few cases” (p. 178), because their use is significantly restricted by the requirements of necessity, proportionality, and effectiveness. Given how rare are the cases in which economic statecraft may be morally acceptable tools, one takeaway from this important book is that it is crucial for policy makers concerned with these ethical issues to err on the side of extreme caution in advocating for economic statecraft as a means to protect human rights.

Although Fabre thoroughly covers most of the relevant literatures from different disciplines, one major neglected area of research is the growing body of scholarship on targeted sanctions. As noted earlier, she thinks targeted sanctions are better-suited instruments for the enforcement of human rights because they are more likely to put economic pressure on the wrongdoers to induce compliance and minimize negative effects on the innocent. Yet, the current literature on targeted sanctions challenges Fabre’s favorable view on the morality of targeted sanctions. There is considerable evidence showing that targeted sanctions in general not only fail to place enough pressure on the targeted elites or sectors of the economy but also trigger political repression, corruption in the government, political violence, income inequality, and poverty. Hence, it might be problematic to advocate for targeted sanctions on the grounds that they meet the requirements of proportionality and effectiveness. The book would also benefit from explaining why aid cuts (i.e., negative conditionality) are treated differently from economic sanctions, given that most sanctions studies consider aid cuts a form of sanctions. Thus, some of the discussion of aid conditionality in Chapter 4 is redundant and repeats the argument made in support of economic sanctions.

Yet Economic Statecraft is a timely and welcome addition to a burgeoning area of scholarship. It should be read by anyone interested in human rights, economic sanctions, and conditional assistance. It is a very-well researched book on the ethics of economic statecraft that will likely instigate more discussion on the ethical implications of foreign economic tools in enforcing human rights.