Webinar: Launch of the International Day Against Unilateral Coercive Measures

This is the webinar recording for C&SN"s special launch event of the inaugural International Day Against Unilateral Coercive Measures (UCMs), as established by the UN General Assembly through the adoption of Resolution 79/293 in June 2025.

For context, UCMs often refer to “economic measures taken by one State to compel a change in the policy of another State” including financial and asset freezes, trade and embargoes, and travel bans. The reality is that these measures rarely achieve their purported and often dubious goals, and instead act as collective punishment towards entire populations that live in areas affected by these measures. Today a third of all countries are subject to U.S. sanctions, and studies show that sanctions, globally, result in more than 550,000 deaths per year — as many deaths as in war. They also create severe impediments to humanitarian action and have negative impacts on civil society operations.

At the event, sanctions experts provided a historical overview of UCMs such as economic sanctions; explored their proliferation since the “sanctions decade” of the 1990s; and examined anticipated future trends for UCMs – and how civil society can best prepare for what’s next.

Guest speakers included:

George A. Lopez, Professor Emeritus of Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame's Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, where he was a founding faculty member. He is a leading expert on economic sanctions, peacebuilding, and various peace-related issues, and co-author of The Sanctions Decade: Assessing UN Strategies in the 1990s.

Masuda Sultan, an Afghan-American women's rights activist and cofounder of Unfreeze Afghanistan, a coalition of organizations created after the collapse of the Afghan government in 2021 in order to advocate for the resumption of aid and protection of Afghanistan’s Central Bank assets. Previously, she helped found other civil society organizations, including Women for Afghan Women, which became Afghanistan's largest women's organization, and All in Peace, a network of groups that advocated for a peaceful end to the war in Afghanistan.

Michael Galant, Senior Research and Outreach Associate at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, where his research and analysis focuses on U.S. economic sanctions, the International Monetary Fund, and the global economic architecture. He is a co-author of CEPR's monthly Sanctions Watch newsletter. He is also a PhD candidate in political economy, studying debt, dependency, and South-South Cooperation.

Ashleigh Subramanian-Montgomery, C&SN's Senior Director, Policy & Advocacy, who is an experienced researcher, analyst, and strategist, and has worked on peacebuilding across a number of contexts and conflicts. As Senior Director, she is responsible for leading C&SN's policy goals, and her work supports protecting civil society from the harmful impacts of counter-terrorism measures worldwide.

C&SN’s Howard S. Brembeck Fellow, Poorvika Mehra, moderated the event.

Mehra provides technical assistance to C&SN’s network of 200+ organizations, analyzing how counter-terrorism financing rules, de-risking, and U.S. and UN sanctions regimes shape operational constraints for humanitarian and development actors around the world. She received the Philip Noel-Baker Prize for her research while studying at the London School of Economics and holds a dual MPA from LSE and Columbia University.