عنوان: آیا تحریمهای بین‌المللی بر محیط زیست ایران اثر گذاشته است؟
معرفی مقاله
نشریه: جهان
سال انتشار: ۲۰۲۱
نویسنده: کاوه مدنی
تحریمهای اقتصادی بین المللی به عنوان یک ابزار فشار بر جمهوری اسلامی ایران در چهار دهه گذشته مورد استفاده بوده‌اند. در مقابل، ایران با پیاده سازی راهکارهای مقاومتی تلاش کرده است تا از فشار تحریم‌ها بکاهد، اما بسیاری از راهکارهای مقاومتی ایران با اثرات چشم‌گیر محیط زیستی همراه بوده‌اند.
این پژوهش برای اولین بار آثار ناخواسته محیط زیستی تحریمهای ایران را به طور گسترده مورد بررسی قرار می‌دهد.
بر اساس نتایج این مطالعه، تحریم را به هیچ وجه نمی‌توان به عنوان عامل اصلی مشکلات محیط زیستی ایران که طی چند دهه شکل گرفته‌اند، تلقی کرد.
با این وجود، تحریم‌ها از سه طریق، فرآیند تخریب محیط زیست ایران را تسریع کرده‌اند:
۱- کاهش سطح دسترسی ایران به فن‌آوری، خدمات و دانش فنی بین المللی
۲- مسدود کردن حمایت‌های مالی محیط زیستی نهادهای بین‌المللی
۳- افزایش وابستگی اقتصاد ایران به منابع طبیعی
در واقع در شرایطی که محیط زیست از جمله موارد دارای اهمیت در سیاست‌گذاری عمومی برای تصمیم گیرندگان و حکمرانان ایران نبوده است، تحریم‌ها فشار اقتصاد و اشتغال‌زایی را بر محیط زیست افزایش داده‌اند و چشم پوشی از اثرات مخرب صنایع، طرح‌های توسعه و ادامه سیاست‌های موجود در بخش‌های مختلف اقتصادی را برای حکمرانان توجیه پذیر کرده اند.
این مقاله با مرور اسناد و آمار موجود و ارجاع به مثال‌های متعدد از اجرای طرح‌های توسعه در بخش‌های مختلف (به ویژه صنایع نفت و گاز و خودرو) نتیجه می‌گیرد که مدیریت کشور در شرایط مقاومتی تحت تحریمهای بین‌المللی، اثرات جبران‌ناپذیری بر محیط زیست ایران بر جا گذاشته است.
به عقیده نگارنده، با توجه به تبعات فرانسلی و فرامرزی تخریب محیط زیست و منابع طبیعی، رابطه تحریم و محیط زیست از منظر عدالت محیط زیستی و حقوق بشری شایان توجه است.
دانلود مقاله
Have International Sanctions Impacted Iran’s Environment
لینک دسترسی رایگان به مقاله:
https://www.mdpi.com/2673-4060/2/2/15/htm
Have International Sanctions Impacted Iran’s Environment?
by Kaveh Madani 1,2ORCID
1 The Program in Iranian Studies, Council on Middle East Studies, The MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06511, USA
2 Department of Political Science, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06511, USA
Academic Editor: Manfred Max Bergman
World 2021, 2(2), 231-252; https://doi.org/10.3390/world2020015
Received: 11 April 2021 / Revised: 18 April 2021 / Accepted: 19 April 2021 / Published: 21 April 2021
Abstract
Economic sanctions have been actively used against Iran in the last four decades. In response to sanctions, Iran has adopted a range of survivalist policies with notable environmental implications. This study provides the first extensive overview of the unintended environmental impacts of international economic sanctions on Iran.
It is argued that while sanctions are certainly not the root cause of Iran’s major environmental problems, they have had an undeniable impact on Iran’s environment by:
(1) restricting its access to technology, service, and know-how;
(2) blocking international environmental aid; and
(3) increasing the natural resource-intensity of its economy. Sanctions have effectively limited Iran’s economic growth and its ability to decouple its economy from natural resources, thereby growing the role of natural resources in Iran’s political economy.
Overall, sanctions have made economic production much costlier to its environment, which is not currently considered a priority in the policy agenda of the Iranian leaders who manage the country in survival mode while aggressively pursuing their ideology.
The study calls for increased attention to the overlooked environmental impacts of sanctions on Iran with major health, justice, and human rights implications that could be transgenerational and transboundary.
Keywords: sanctions; Iran; environmental policy; environmental justice; environmental security; environmental economics; environmental diplomacy; unclear program; nuclear deal; JCPOA
Introduction
With the presumed ability to normalize behavior and remove threats, international economic sanctions have been in use for decades. Countries, coalitions of nations, and intergovernmental bodies impose sanctions on the states that, in their view, behave abnormally according to international norms and act as threats to their interests. In theory, and compared to wars, economic sanctions do not have immediate and noticeable destructive and deadly impacts.
As such, they appear as humane and soft foreign policy tools that can achieve their purpose by solely targeting the economy of the sanctioned state. In practice, however, the impacts of economic sanctions can go beyond the economic sector.
Sanctions can be associated with major collateral damage to ordinary citizens and their economic welfare [2,3,4,5,6]. The degeneration of human rights and the emergence of food and health insecurity problems as the result of sanctions are among the frequently used humanitarian grounds to criticize the legitimacy and effectiveness of sanctions .
The environment is another sector that could be impacted by economic sanctions.
Nevertheless, investigations of the short and long-term environmental implications of international economic sanctions are very limited.
The Islamic Republic of Iran (hereafter, Iran) has been the target of major international economic sanctions by the United States, United Nations (UN), and European Union (EU) over the past four decades.
Whether these sanctions have achieved their objectives and whether they have been successful in changing Iran’s behavior by impacting its economy have been the subject of controversial debates. Nevertheless, the implications of economic sanctions on Iran have gone beyond the country’s economic sector [15,25,26,27,28,29] and can have lasting impacts even when the sanctions are lifted.
Iran is currently experiencing major environmental problems. Increasing water shortage, drying rivers, wetlands, and aquifers, air and waste pollution, soil erosion, deforestation, desertification, sand and dust storms, land subsidence and sinkholes, wildfires, and biodiversity losses are some of the evident signs of Iran’s environmental degradation over the last four decades.
Iranian top officials have frequently blamed economic sanctions for their environmental implications, some claiming that sanctions have caused “severe” and “irreparable” damages to Iran’s environment [40,41,42,43].
Nonetheless, these claims have not been verified and knowledge on the possible impacts of economics sanctions on Iran’s environment is highly restricted.
21 April 2021