Do international sanctions help or inhibit justice and sustainability in tourism?

Abstract

Despite the expanded use of sanctions as a soft foreign policy tool in the post-Cold War era, there is yet little knowledge on the implications of this coercive tool in relation to justice, ethics and sustainability in destinations to which sanctions are applied. Using Iran as a case study and grounded in international relations and political science literature, this study used semi-structured interviews with tourism actors to assess the direct and indirect effects of sanctions on tourism with respect to justice, rights and sustainability. The informants suggested that sanctions have worsened mobility rights, rights to communication, and the economic and financial rights of tourism actors, thereby limited their capacity to contribute to inclusive and sustainable development. Distributive pressures within Iran arising from the sanction-driven economic disruption have clearly undermined the empowerment capacity of tourism to contribute to improve gender justice, thereby standing in opposition to the principles of justice and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, notions of justice and rights are uneven in space and time, with their application inherently dependent on its definition in particular contexts. By portraying new insights from the restrictions emanating from sanctions, this study contributes to a deeper understanding of a very popular instrument of foreign policy and its humanitarian and justice implications in destinations affected by sanctions.

Keywords:

• Sanctions
• justice
• mobility rights
• sustainable development goals
• crisis
• gender empowerment

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to thank the special issue editors and four anonymous reviewers for their careful reading of the paper and their thoughtful comments and constructive suggestions, which helped us to improve the quality of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Siamak Seyfi

Siamak Seyfi is an Assistant Professor at the Geography Research Unit of the University of Oulu, Finland. Using a multi-/interdisciplinary approach and informed by diverse disciplinary perspectives, his research interests focus on critical tourism geographies, impacts of tourism, resilience, sustainability and politics of tourism and peace through tourism.

Colin Michael Hall

C. Michael Hall is a Professor in the Department of Management, Marketing and Entrepreneurship at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand; Docent, Department of Geography, University of Oulu, Finland; and Visiting Professor, School of Business and Economics, Linnaeus University, Kalmar. He publishes widely on tourism, sustainability, global environmental change and regional development.

Jarkko Saarinen

Jarkko Saarinen is a Professor of Geography at the University of Oulu, Finland, and Distinguished Visiting Professor (Sustainability Management) at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa. His research interests include tourism and development, sustainability in tourism, tourism and climate change adaptation, tourism-community relations and wilderness and nature conservation studies.

Tan Vo-Thanh

Tan Vo-Thanh is an Associate Professor at Excelia Business School. His main research interests include sustainable tourism, service digitalization, customer engagement, customer experience, consumer behaviour, social entrepreneurship, service marketing, green HRM, and HRM.