Comprehensive Economic Sanctions Research Articles

U.S.-Imposed Economic Sanctions on Iran in the COVID-19 Crisis From the Human Rights Perspective.

One of the obvious impacts of comprehensive economic sanctions is on pharmaceuticals and supplies, which are essential elements of all functioning health systems. Observers report that comprehensive sanctions imposed on Iran are a barrier to Iran's coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) crisis and could impede Iran's access to coronavirus vaccines. In this minireview, we discuss COVID-19 and its human rights dimensions of U.S. sanctions on Iran. We believe fighting COVID-19 with limited resources during sanctions will produce a humanitarian crisis, and coronavirus is a convincing reason to lift the sanctions on Iran.

Comment on “United Nations Sanctions on North Korea's Luxury Goods Imports: Impact and Implications”

Interest in the effects of economic sanctions on North Korea is growing as international talks regarding its denuclearization unfold. Jeong (2019) is a unique study in that it takes the embargo on imports of luxury goods as its specific focus for examining the effects of UN sanctions against North Korea. Previous studies examining the effects of the luxury goods embargo include Noland (2009), who focuses on North Korea's trade with China and South Korea immediately after the 2006 sanctions resolution that followed North Korea's first nuclear test. However, Jeong's study is distinguished by its comprehensive nature, covering a longer period and a wider range of countries. Jeong's overall conclusion that the sanctions were ineffective in decreasing North Korea's imports of luxury goods is not novel. However, it provides additional food for thought, revealing a number of hitherto little-known facts. These include the rise in China's share of North Korean luxury goods imports from 30.9% in 2004 to 96.6% in 2017, and the fact that even many nations that submitted plans for the implementation of sanctions failed to rigorously implement the provisions of the resolutions concerning the embargo on luxury goods. One factor behind the sanctions’ ineffectiveness was the lack of objective criteria for what constitutes luxury goods. Jeong (2019) persuasively argues that provisions enforcing transparency on sanctioning countries must be strengthened. Nevertheless, the fact remains that UN economic sanctions have limitations from the outset. Ogura (2017) states that rather than forcing or preventing specific actions, namely acts of hostility, the more fundamental objective or purpose of economic sanctions is to maintain and strengthen specific norms in the international community and to bolster solidarity among those who abide by them. While UN economic sanctions vary in their objectives and effects, which include strengthening unity among member countries and encouraging domestic political solidarity, they have a range of constraints and limitations, such as their effectiveness if some countries fail to comply with the sanctions or if alternative supplies are available. There are hardly any historical examples of countries changing their behavior in the face of economic sanctions. While the UN Charter does not use the term economic sanctions, such sanctions are the main pillar of its nonmilitary action. Economic sanctions take various forms; embargoes on luxury goods are a form of what are termed smart sanctions. Smart sanctions were devised to target policymakers, based on the lessons learned from the severe civilian humanitarian crisis that resulted from comprehensive economic sanctions imposed on Iraq. Although the embargo on supplying luxury goods to North Korea was likely intended to impact on the elite, doubts remain about the effectiveness of an approach that distinguishes between the elite and ordinary citizens in a reclusive state where the civil society is undeveloped and which is willing to bear international isolation in pursuit of its nuclear ambitions. In this sense, Jeong (2019) is right to stress the need for the UN Security Council to devise more intelligent sanction measures, coupled with negotiations to positively alter North Korea's behavior. Economic sanctions alone are not necessarily sufficient to achieve political aims and often only become effective when combined with other political measures. However, deepening rifts between the USA and China over trade and security issues raise the question of whether the international community can be unanimous in offering North Korea acceptable comprehensive incentives. While denuclearization talks between the USA and North Korea are ongoing, there are signs that China intends to revive its traditional bilateral relationship with North Korea. The People's Daily described China and North Korea's relationship as being “as close as lips and teeth.” The analogy signifies not only that they are close, but also that they support each other and that what destroys one will cause the destruction of the other. Similarly, when President Xi Jinping met Chairman Kim Jong-un for talks in May 2018, he made a display of solidarity, trotting out old phrases last used during the Cold War. China's customs authority has not published any detailed data on trade with other countries – including North Korea – since April 2018. Media reports suggest that Chairman Kim was gifted many luxury items as souvenirs by China during his visit the month before. When the USA renewed calls for sanctions on North Korea at a ministerial-level meeting of the UN Security Council in September 2018, China joined Russia in arguing that sanctions needed to be relaxed. Although China began working with the USA in 2017 to impose more rigorous sanctions on North Korea, this cooperation seems unlikely to continue beyond 2019.

Policy Change and Policy Stasis: Comparing Swiss Foreign Policy toward South Africa (1968-94) and Iraq (1990-91)

This article investigates how concepts from the field of public policy, in particular the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) initially introduced by Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith, can be applied to the study of foreign policy analysis. Using a most similar comparative case studies design, we examine Switzerland's foreign policy toward South Africa under apartheid for the period from 1968 to 1994 and compare it with the Swiss position toward Iraq after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990, when the Swiss government imposed—for the first time—comprehensive economic sanctions against another state. The application of the ACF shows that a dominant advocacy coalition in Swiss foreign policy toward South Africa prevented a major policy change in Swiss–South African relations despite external pressure from the international and national political levels. Actually, quite the opposite could be observed: Swiss foreign policy increased its persistence in not taking economic sanctions against the racist regime in South Africa during the 1980s and early 1990s. The ACF, with its analytical focus on policy subsystems and the role of external shocks as potential triggers for change, provided a useful framework for analyzing the factors for policy change and stasis in Swiss foreign relations toward the selected two countries.

Coercive or Corrosive: The Negative Impact of Economic Sanctions on Democracy

This article seeks to analyze the impact that sanctions have on democracy. We argue that economic sanctions worsen the level of democracy because the economic hardship caused by sanctions can be used as a strategic tool by the targeted regime to consolidate authoritarian rule and weaken the opposition. Furthermore, we argue that economic sanctions create new incentives for the political leadership to restrict political liberties, to undermine the challenge of sanctions as an external threat to their authority. Using time-series cross-national data (1972–2000), the findings show that both the immediate and longer‐term effects of economic sanctions significantly reduce the level of democratic freedoms in the target. The findings also demonstrate that comprehensive economic sanctions have greater negative impact than limited sanctions. These findings suggest that sanctions can create negative externalities by reducing the political rights and civil liberties in the targeted state.

United Nations Nonproliferation Sanctions

Much has been written about the role of UN sanctions to counter terrorism in the aftermath of the n September 2001 terrorist attacks, specifically sanctions against al Qaeda and the Taliban under resolution 1267, and broader UN counte rterrorism initiatives under resolution 1373. : Less attention has been focused on multilateral sanctions for nonproliferation objectives, despite the extensive efforts of the security council since the end of the Cold War to thwart proliferation as well as terrorism. Indeed, before the December 2009 arms embargo was imposed on Eritrea, no new UN sanctions had been adopted since 2006 that were not proliferation or terrorism-related.This article will discuss current UN sanctions to counter the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) by Iran and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea), consider the lessons of counterterrorism sanctions for these nonproliferation measures, and assess the challenges for future nonproliferation sanctions.2 In addition, it will examine the relationship between sanctions and the broader UN initiative to promote nonproliferation under resolution 1540. While not a sanctions resolution, 1540 constitutes an important advance that strengthens the potential effectiveness of sanctions.SPECIFIC COUNTRY PROLIFERATION SANCTIONSThe use of multilateral sanctions to counter the development of nuclear weapons is not new; the UN imposed successive sets of sanctions on Iraq. Indeed, one ofthe ironies ofthe unfortunate history ofthe comprehensive economic sanctions on Iraq is the apparent success of the measures in dismantling its WMD capabilities, even as they were considered a failure because of problematic implementation and humanitarian impact.3 More recently, sanctions to prevent the proliferation of WMD as a threat to international peace and security have focused on two countries: Iran and North Korea.IranFor 30 years, the US has maintained unilateral sanctions against Iran both for its support of terrorist organizations - Hamas, Hezbollah, and Palestine Islamic Jihad - and its nuclear activities. Congressional action (the IranLibya sanctions act of 1996 and its amended versions) to pressure Iran through secondary sanctions against foreign companies investing in Iran's energy sector or assisting Iran's WMD programs remain a key component of American policy towards Iran.4 More recently, the US has attempted to isolate Iran financially through sanctions against targeted individuals and entities and by persuading international financial institutions to cut ties to the country.5 One ofthe most difficult foreign policy challenges confronting the Obama administration is how to exercise greater pressure on Iran through additional crippling sanctions.6 Congress is expected to adopt broad new measures early in 2010 aimed at isolating the Iranian economy; these may include prohibiting foreign companies that provide Iran with refined petroleum products from doing business in the US.7Security council sanctions followed years of diplomatic negotiations to urge Iranian cooperation with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) agreements assuring that its nuclear activities were for peaceful purposes only. The security council has passed three resolutions aimed at halting Iran's proliferation activities.8 Adopted unanimously under chapter VII of the charter ofthe United Nations concerning threats to international peace, resolution 1737 demanded that Iran suspend its enrichment-related and reprocessing activities and resolve outstanding issues with the IAEA. The mandatory measures require member states to prohibit the transfer of all items, equipment, goods, and technology that could contribute to Iran's enrichment-related activities or to the development of nuclear weapons delivery systems; freeze the assets of 12 Iranian individuals and 10 entities for providing support for Iran's nuclear activities; and exercise restraint with respect to the travel and training of designated individuals, arms, or WMD-useful exports to Iran, and the activities of Iranian banks. …

U.S. Sanctions and Treasury Department Actions Against North Korea from 1955 to October 2007

OverviewThe history of U.S. sanctions against DPRK can be divided into six stages. The U.S. maintained fairly comprehensive economic sanctions from time of Korean War until 1989, occasionally increasing level of restriction during this period. Between 1989 and 1995 export of goods from U.S. commercial sector was permitted solely for purpose of meeting basic human needs. A more extensive easing of sanctions accompanied negotiation of Agreed Framework in 1994.In 2000, President Clinton eased many remaining trade and travel sanctions in response to DPRK's 1999 voluntary halt in missile testing. Licensing and trade regulations on most items for civilian use were significantly relaxed at this time.Although George W. Bush administration's approach to DPRK differed considerably from that of Clinton administration, no economic sanctions were re-imposed during President Bush's first term, although two North Korean companies were cited for WMD and missile proliferation (Rennack).In March 2005, North Korea declared that because the DPRK-U.S. dialogue on which missile test moratorium was based had been totally suspended when Bush administration took office in 2001, DPRK is bound to moratorium on missile launch at present. The DPRK then tested short range missiles first on May 1, 2005, and again on March 8, 2006. These short range tests, which did not break any international laws, garnered only limited public attention and condemnation from United States and international community, and no U.S. economic sanctions were re-imposed.Instead, in this fifth phase, U.S. administration focused on financial sanc- tions, including assets of individual companies suspected of proliferating weapons of mass destruction (WMD). On June 28, 2005, United States froze assets under U.S. jurisdiction of three DPRK firms that it accused of engaging in WMD proliferation, and in October 2005 froze assets of an additional eight firms (Rennack).In September 2005 U.S. Department of Treasury designated Banco Delta Asia as a bank of primary money laundry concern. This action, coupled with a December 2005 Treasury Department advisory warning financial institutions against transactions with DPRK, proved to have considerable impact on DPRK's ability to do business, and may have had a greater impact than sanctions that had been lifted during Clinton administration.In March 2006, U.S. Department of Treasury accused a Swiss company of doing business with one of sanctioned North Korean firms, and froze assets of Swiss company and its owner and banned U.S. entities from doing business with firm or owner. In April 2006 Department of Treasury issued an Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) regulation banning U.S. persons from owning or leasing North Korean-flagged vessels.On July 5, 2006, DPRK test-launched an array of ballistic missiles, including a long-range Taepodong-2. The United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 1695 ten days later, although, as with earlier short-range tests, long range test broke no international laws. Even with adoption of 1695, Bush Administration did not immediately re-impose sanctions lifted by Clinton administration in exchange for moratorium.North Korea tested a nuclear device on October 9, 2006, after which UN Security Council quickly adopted UN Resolution 1718 in response. In January 2007, Bush administration re-imposed some of sanctions lifted in Clinton era, and published a list of luxury items prohibited for export to DPRK, ushering in a sixth phase of sanctions.In Initial Actions agreement signed by Six Parties on February 13, 2007, United States agreed to begin process of removing designation of DPRK as a state sponsor of terrorism and advance process of terminating application of Trading with Enemy Act with respect to DPRK. …

Remaking the Mainstream: The Case for Activist IR Scholarship

What should international relations (IR) academics do in relation to activism, both in principle and in relation to Britain foreign policy? In this article I argue that, while British IR academics do a significant amount of valuable theoretical and empirical research, we produce very little primarily empirical work which documents the record of the British state in creating human misery abroad – be it hunger and illness through comprehensive economic sanctions or repression using British taxpayer-subsidised arms sales. I use ‘British’ in this article as shorthand for ‘British-based’, and I use ‘British state’ as shorthand for the highly networked but heterogeneous political and corporate elite which holds concentrations of power and money in Britain and beyond. In addition, British IR academics engage in very little research exposing the deceptions and self-deceptions deployed by the British state to deny its responsibility for that human misery, and directed towards contributing to education and activism which challenges the right of the British political-corporate elite to act in these ways. The important work of exposing and challenging these oppressive aspects of British foreign policy has been carried out very predominantly by non-academics, principally journalist John Pilger, independent author Mark Curtis, and political satirist and campaigner Mark Thomas.1 Using my own past record of neglect of these issues as an illustration, I argue that most IR academics tend not even to be aware of making a choice in failing to carry out such vitally necessary work. In such cases, we have what physicist Jeff Schmidt called in his brilliant book of the same name ‘disciplined minds’, that is, minds which operate within elite-serving ideological bounds, doing innocuous, weakly challenging or directly elite-serving work.2

Reconstructing Gender: Iraqi women between dictatorship, war, sanctions and occupation

This article explores the role of Iraqi women in reconstruction processes by contextualising the current situation with respect to changing gender ideologies and relations over the past three decades. Before discussing the Iraqi case specifically, I provide a brief theoretical background about the significance of gender in reconstruction as well as nation-building processes. A historical background aims to shed light on the changing gender ideologies and relations during the regime of Saddam Hussein. The article focuses particularly on the impacts of the early developmental – modernist discourses of the state and the impacts of war (Iran – Iraq war 1980 – 88, Gulf wars 1991, 2003) as well as on the comprehensive economic sanctions regime (1990 – 2003). The latter involved wider social changes affecting women and gender relations but also society at large because of the impoverishment of the well educated middle-class, wide-scale unemployment, an economic crisis and a shift towards more conservative values and morals. It is against this historical background that contemporary developments related to ongoing conflict, occupation and political transition affect women and gender relations.

Legal boundaries to UN sanctions

The Security Council is empowered under Article 41 of the UN Charter to ensure international peace and security by imposing non‐military measures, including comprehensive economic sanctions. As UN sanctions have been shown to cause massive harm to civilian populations, the question has arisen whether the Security council is bound by any legal norms in designing and imposing economic coercion on populations and if so, what these norms are. The article's conclusion is that when imposing measures under Article 41, the Security Council is bound by the UN Charter, by general principles of international law and by human rights norms. Consequently it appears that in order to be effective, economic sanctions would have to be unlawful.

How Sanctions Work: Lessons from South Africa

SANCTIONSReviews by Margaret P. Doxey, Emeritus Professor, Trent UniversityEdited by Neta C.Crawford and Audie KlotzNew York: St. Martin's, 1999, xv, 292pp, US$59.95 cloth (ISBN 0-312-21854-0), US$19.95 paper (ISBN 0-312-21856-7)It is not surprising that extensive use of sanctions by the United Nations Security Council since 1990 and continued reliance on sanctions as a foreign policy tool by the United States have prompted much scholarly activity. Numerous conferences, seminars, and symposia have been sponsored by governmental and non-governmental bodies, and a steady stream of reports, books, and articles has appeared in print. Most of these included policy prescriptions for a wiser choice of measures and greater efficiency in applying them. And although 'constructive engagement' tended to be discredited as a means of ending apartheid in South Africa, doubts about the efficacy of negative measures and concern for their adverse effects on innocent parties has revived interest in offering positive inducements to good behaviour as an alternative to negative sanctions.The three books reviewed here are all welcome additions to the sanctions literature. Two are edited works that use the case study approach to offer description, analysis, and prescription in respect of positive and negative measures; the third is a theoretically focused, single-author work which briefly addresses policy questions in the final chapter.In The Sanctions Paradox Daniel Drezner charges that recent literature on economic statecraft offers 'well-crafted theories that lack empirical support or well-crafted case studies that produce generalizations of dubious quality' (p 19). His criticism has some validity, although the overall judgment is too harsh. Drezner is careful to acknowledge the theoretical and methodological limits to his own work, and the reader who reasonably expects more balance in his analysis will not be disappointed. He develops a 'conflict expectations model' in which sanctions are viewed as policy gains that can be used to advantage in future conflicts and uses a variety of quantitative and qualitative methods to test its validity. Russian economic coercion of other members of the former Soviet Union and attempts by the United States and other Western countries to check nuclear proliferation in the Korean peninsula provide the material for well-presented and interesting case studies.Drezner contends that because sanctions are grounded in expectations of conflict they are more often used against enemies than against allies; the paradox that gives the book its title is the finding, shared with many other scholars, that allies are more susceptible to pressure than adversaries. Drezner's explanation is that the latter are less concerned to avoid conflict with the governments that impose sanctions - indeed they expect it.Heavy use of mathematical modelling does not make for an easy read, but there is much of interest in this book, and the case studies, particularly those concerning Russia and its neighbours, break valuable new ground.In How Sanctions Work Neta Crawford and Audie Klotz have assembled a set of essays that describe the wide range of sanctions imposed on a variety of South African targets. Arms embargoes, oil sanctions, disinvestment, diplomatic and cultural isolation are dealt with by American, Canadian, and South African authors.Following their introductory chapter, the editors present a 'framework for analysis' for evaluating the direct, indirect, and counterproductive consequences of sanctions (p 25). Tables set out models of influence (compellence, normative communication, resource denial, and political fracture) and 'sites' (that is, targets) where consequences should be felt. Sites are listed as elite decision-makers, the economy, civil society, regional and global spillover. The disaggregation of specific targets is a welcome feature of this book, given the extent of concern over the adverse consequences of comprehensive economic sanctions and recent focus on targeted measures that seek to deprive decision-makers and elites of the use of financial assets and other amenities. …

Banning child sacrifice

It seems that every few months a United States bombardment of Iraq appears to be inevitable. Even though the most comprehensive economic sanctions ever inflicted in modern history have already crippled Iraq, slaughtering over 500,000 children under the age of five, the U.S. and its allies remain poised for further assault. The continuing U.S. threats of massive air strikes on Iraq only heap agony upon civilians who have already endured a seven‐year state of siege.

Stabilising inflation in Slovenia, Croatia and Macedonia: How independence has affected macroeconomic policy outcomes

THE NATIONAL QUESTION, seen most of all in disagreement about the competencies of the federation versus the republics, and compounded by the emergence of the aggressive Milosevic regime in Serbia, brought about the break-up of Yugoslavia. Economic forces certainly played their role; resentments about the Federal Fund for Less Developed Regions, disputes over stabilisation policy, tariffs and wages brought out intense rivalry among Yugoslav republics and their constituent nationalities. And Yugoslavia's macroeconomic instability and falling living standards in the 1980s made it clear that the existing political arrangements were inadequate for the tasks of economic management. Still, it seems fair to say that the ending of Yugoslavia was less a rational economic choice than the triumph of national and political passions. It remains useful to ask about the economic effects of separation. Given the continuation of war and diplomatic turmoil in the region, it may be too early to address this question fully. I limit the task by limiting the sample of countries to Slovenia, Croatia and Macedonia.1 The other two ex-Yugoslav states, Bosnia-Hercegovina and Federal Yugoslavia, are excluded because of the war in the former and the comprehensive economic sanctions on the latter. Rather than attempt to decide whether the new states will be economically better off than ex-Yugoslavia, this article looks only at initial efforts to create a stable macroeconomic environment, in particular to bring inflation under control. The premise is quite rudimentary: inflation of 20% or more a month is incompatible with satisfactory economic performance.2 What are the keys to combating inflation? Monetarist theory would argue that an independent, inflation-fighting central bank is the crucial institution, and that a tight monetary stance is the most crucial policy measure. This article takes a broader view, inspired by post-Keynesian thought, arguing that the creation of economic institutions and economic policies to mediate distributional conflict is central. Stabilisationoriented monetary policy and institutions are only one element of macroeconomic stability in this view; a degree of political consensus over fiscal matters, and

The Gulf War and the Criterion of Last Resort

The last resort criterion was employed by many critics of the war who believed that sanctions ought to have been given more time. Because sanctions were not given the chance to work fully, but were in effect preempted by the November 8th decision to double the American forces in the Gulf in preparation for a military solution, many people—including myself—held and still hold that claims for the overall justice of the war were seriously compromised. But we must consider a counter-argument to this, powerfully put by Oliver O’Donovan among others, which says that comprehensive sanctions such as were approved against Iraq are themselves a form of war: indeed of indiscriminate warfare, particularly aimed at the weakest and most defenceless members of the opposing nation. According to this view, morally speaking, there was little to choose between on the one hand bombing Iraqi civilians and destroying their essential life-support systems (water, electricity etc.), not to mention the wretched conscripted victims of Saddam’s military machine; and on the other hand starving them to death by sanctions. This case has force and we must not suppose that sanctions are anything other than ferocious and indiscriminate. The Ahtisaari report to the UN in March makes this perfectly clear. Nevertheless, distinctions do have to be drawn. Comprehensive economic sanctions first of all are clearly a legal means of pressure: the UN Charter says so in Article 41. Use of them is a case of upholding, not undermining, the rule of law. Furthermore the UN charter makes it plain in Article 42 that sanctions are clearly to be used first, before the use of force is permitted. To this extent, international law gives an obvious priority to sanctions over military operations.