Beyond Economic Sanctions: Rethinking the North Korean Sanctions Regime

Abstract

Introduction: The Ineffectiveness of the North Korean Sanctions RegimeThe fact that nuclear weapons capability can quickly and radically alter the strategic balance is well known.3 This quality of nuclear weapons has made their acquisition particularly valuable to North Korea.4 And for the very same reason, the community has tried to prevent the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) from acquiring nuclear weapons and missile-based delivery systems. Since at least 1994, concerted efforts have been made to halt Pyongyang's nuclear programs and state the community's opposition.5The major state players engaged in these efforts are the bordering states, grouped loosely in the so-called Six Party Talks (DPRK and South Korea, China, the United States, Russia, and Japan). The denial strategy employed by these actors has been a combination of diplomacy, negotiations, and coercion in the form of sanctions.6 By 2006/2009, however, it had become clear that these attempts had failed in their objective.7 In light of this and the worsening security situation on the Korean Peninsula today, the need for effective sanctions has arguably never been greater.Below, the argument is made that the instrument of sanctions imposed on North Korea has been reduced largely to sanctions, although statecraft and in particular public law conceptualizes it more broadly as economic and other sanctions.8 With sanctions understood too narrowly as essentially instruments of diplomacy, too much faith has been put in the assumption that economic costs will translate into political effects9 of the targeted state. With respect to North Korea, such an approach has remained ineffective.10 Therefore, the focus should be shifted to other, especially diplomatic sanctions in order to increase the effect of the sanctions regime on the DPRK.Diplomacy, Coercive Diplomacy, and SanctionsSanctions fall under the rubric of coercive diplomacy, which itself is a subspecies of general diplomacy. Diplomacy is meant to manage, limit, or prevent problems from deteriorating into crises and open conflict.11 The choice between diplomacy and the application of physical violence is, however, often more a dilemma than a choice. Crisis diplomacy without the threat of military force may be perceived as impotent; at the same time, the actual use of physical violence may be considered politically out of bounds and normatively unacceptable. Sanctions promise a middle ground between diplomatic negotiations and direct violence, making them an immensely relevant tool of statecraft in general, and probably the most common foreign policy tool democracies use to bring about policy or institutional changes in authoritarian regimes.12Combining Thomas Schelling's and Alexander George's work on the subject, compulsion is conceptualized here as using the threat of war to alter a situation proactively, coercion as applying the threat of force to reverse or stall a development, and deterrence as the threat of major military force if clearly communicated interests are violated.13 A sanctions regime, such as the one in place for North Korea, is coercion as part of coercive diplomacy. Coercive diplomacy employs the threat of force to provide the coercing state with leverage,14 but remains distinct from open, violent interstate conflict.15The common objective of any form of coercive diplomacy is to achieve a change in behavior by the targeted state. With respect to North Korea, the sanctions regime has been structured with the objective of altering North Korean policy towards its missile programs and nuclear armament. More specifically, the idea has been to use sanctions to create an unsustainable situation for North Korea, thus coercing it to adjust its military-political strategy.SanctionsAll too often sanctions are conceptualized narrowly as sanctions and an effort at international coercion. …