The Effectiveness of Economic Sanctions: The Case of North Korea

Abstract

IntroductionThe phrase means restrictions on normal commercial relations with a target country, including trade, investment, and other cross-border activities. Economic sanctions are either unilateral or multilateral. A unilateral sanction is imposed by one country, such as the U.S., against another country, such as North Korea. Multilateral sanctions require the cooperation of at least two nations. The clearest examples of multilateral sanctions are those imposed by the Security Council of the United Nations.The UN has imposed economic sanctions no more than 13 so-called or states throughout its existence. These sanctioned nations include Afghanistan, Haiti, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Myanmar (formerly Burma), Rhodesia, South Africa, and Yugoslavia. When a UN sanction is imposed, all UN member nations are required to comply with the order and to enforce the sanction against the outlaw country (Addis, 2003, p. 575). The U.S. has frequently used unilateral sanctions against many countries as a regular tenet of its foreign policy since the end of Cold War. According to Addis (2003), about 75 percent of the world's nearly 200 countries were subject to U.S. sanctions as of 2000. Garfield (2002) found that the U.S. had placed 68 percent of the world population under economic sections.The U.S. has turned to sanctions or the threat of sanctions to achieve political objectives, such as the overthrow of hostile regimes, the termination of interstate aggression, the protection of human rights, the elimination of weapons of mass destruction programs, a halt to nuclear testing programs, and the encouragement of domestic and foreign policy changes (Ripsman and Blanchard, p. 15i). The U.S. has used sanctions in the hope that they would lead the sanctioned nations' citizenry to rebel against their leaders or at least compel them to comply fully with U.S. demands. However, none of the sanctions has achieved its intended purpose. In fact, sanctions have backfired and tarnished the credibility of the U.S. as a leader of the free world. Meanwhile, the U.S. has created miserable economic conditions for tens of millions of people around the world whom it intended to help through its economic sanctions. Thus, the time has come for the U.S. to recognize that economic sanctions represent a failed policy. The U.S. must build economic and diplomatic ties with its adversaries to ensure world peace and stability. A case study of U.S. economic sanctions against North Korea may help clarify why a policy of engagement and reconciliation with North Korea could be the best approach to accomplish significant improvements in North Korea's social, political and economic condition.A full context for analyzing a change in U.S. policy toward North Korea requires an understanding of (i) the types of sanctions against rogue countries; (2) reasons why most experts oppose the use of economic sanctions as a political tool; and (3) reasons why economic sanctions have been ineffective. Therefore, the following three sections review the existing literature on economic sanctions, with particular attention to the matter of why they often fail. This literature also provides a basis for the specific evaluation of U.S. sanctions against North Korea, and a foundation for evaluating alternatives for dealing with a nuclear North Korea.Types of SanctionsTo achieve political goals, the U.S. has historically used a wide variety of coercive actions against outlaw regimes, including military actions, economic sanctions, and diplomatic protests with or without military threat or covert action. Among those actions, economic sanctions have generated the most heated debate among academicians because they have been notoriously ineffective and have caused irreparable harm to innocent civilians. For example, a 13-year UN embargo against Iraq from 1990 to 2003 spearheaded by the U.S. caused at least i.5 million Iraqis, including 500,000 children, to lose their lives (Alnasrawi, 200i, p. …