Some sanctions regimes are adopted in response to political crises in particular states. Such sanctions usually specify a series of events within the sanctioned state that have led to the adoption of restrictive measures and demand that state authorities change harmful state policies or practices. The ‘usual suspects’ for geographic sanctions include North Korea, Venezuela, Syria, Russia, and Belarus.
Some sanctions are adopted in respect of specific types of violations or misconduct. For instance, the United States has sanctions regimes associated with counter-terrorism, malicious cyber-enabled activities, or rough diamond trade.
Magnitsky-style sanctions mechanisms, that originated in the United States and have recently been introduced at the EU level, allow sanctioning of specific individuals for serious human rights violations without assessing whether the regime as a whole is ‘sanction-worthy’.