Financial Sanctions, SWIFT, and the Architecture of the International Payment System

Financial sanctions, alongside economic are components of the toolkit used by governments as part international diplomacy. The use especially financial, has increased over last 70 years. sanctions have been particularly important whenever goals sanctioning countries were related to democracy and human rights. restrict entities—countries, businesses, or even individuals—from purchasing selling financial assets, from accessing custodial other services. They can be imposed on a sanctioned entity’s ability access infrastructures that in place execute payments, irrespective whether such payments underpin real activity. This article explains how designed limit payment system and, particular, SWIFT network, provides some recent examples.