Oil and Food as International Sanctions

Abstract

It hardly needs to be stated that the practice of denying food and warmth to an enemy is as old as history. Sieges to force capitulation have been known since the earliest times, and in our own century both world wars produced extensive and intensive efforts to cut off the opposing side from basic necessities of life by bombing, submarine warfare to destroy merchant shipping, and naval blockade. For industrialized countries like Britain and Japan, who were heavily dependent on imported food and raw materials, security of supply was a life and death matter. Interruption of normal trade relations can also be deliberate government policy to inflict punishment in times of peace, and this paper focusses on the possible use of oil and food as international sanctions as an alternative rather than as a supplement to the use of force. In the consideration of economic measures as alternatives to the use of force in the repertoire of League of Nations and United Nations sanctions, denial of strategic minerals and particularly oil has been seen as a key factor in limiting an aggressor's war-making capability. Food sanctions however have not featured prominently in this debate. To deprive people of food, and perhaps starve them to death, is arguably an inappropriate penalty to be imposed by an international body concerned with governmental failure to maintain international standards. Nor did food as a commodity entering into international trade have obvious utility as a 'weapon* for collective use.