Economic sanctions are commonly framed as a less harmful alternative to the use of armed force. However, while their immediate humanitarian consequences have been increasingly documented, far less attention has been paid to their intergenerational effects. Drawing on frameworks from different disciplinary traditions, including developmental psychology, psychiatry and epigenetics, and Indigenous scholarship on historical trauma, this article first explores how trauma may be transmitted across generations, affecting individuals who have not directly experienced the original harmful event. It then analyses how international law conceptualises harm, with particular reference to the work of the Beyond Compliance Consortium and examines the extent to which elements of intergenerational harm have begun to emerge in the reparations jurisprudence of international criminal and regional human rights courts and tribunals.
The article argues that securing redress for intergenerational harm caused by sanctions remains highly constrained due to the contested legal nature of sanctions, the challenges of establishing a causal nexus across generations, and the structural limitations of existing reparation regimes. In light of these constraints, it explores the potential of intergenerational dialogue as a complementary mechanism through which inherited experiences of harm may be narrated, recognised, and socially acknowledged where formal legal processes remain limited. Such dialogue may serve both preventive and restorative functions by informing future sanctions policy and facilitating the transmission of resilience across generations.