The attitude of security council members toward sanctions has been fraught with contradictions mixed, at times, with a strong dose of reluctance. Looking at the employment of UN sanctions over the years and across cases, however, one is struck by how much has been achieved, both in terms of their impact and in terms ofthe development of council working methods despite the undercurrent of political uneasiness and discord that has almost always accompanied this issue within the council. This article outlines the significant changes made to the design of sanctions regimes by the council over the years and the processes and methods associated with the regimes in order to present a clearer and more accurate assessment ofthe council's efforts to improve its working methods and procedures vis-a-vis sanctions.EVOLUTION IN SANCTIONS REGIMES DESIGNThe security council has changed, fundamentally, its construction of sanctions regimes since the early 1990s. After years of Cold War paralysis the council became much more interventionist, resorting to chapter VII tools more often. Sanctions were the council's tool of choice to address threats to and breaches of international peace and security. The council applied sanctions to address a varied list of crises and conflicts, especially intrastate conflicts and, most recently, to target nonstate actors who support international terrorism. In addition, the objectives towards which the security council applies sanctions have expanded from, in most cases, stopping or slowing hostilities to include a variety of goals, such as improving state governance; restoring democratically elected governments; and addressing a range of global security issues from nuclear proliferation and terrorism to the use of child soldiers, and most recently, sexual violence in conflict situations. Finally, the security council has become more selective about the types of targets chosen and the types of measures applied.In the early 1990s, the council was less inventive in the types of sanctions it applied. Sanctions applied in some cases were comprehensive (e.g., in the case of Iraq, Haiti, and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia) while in other cases, only an arms embargo was applied (e.g., in the case of the former Yugoslavia, Ethiopia/ Eritrea, Liberia I, Rwanda, and Kosovo). In this period, sanctions were applied against the states in question rather than particular actors. However, the council began to differentiate between the measures and the particular actors ofthe conflicts. In the case of Angola, for example, in 1993, the council chose to apply sanctions against only a nonstate actor - the rebel group Uniao Nacional para a Independencia Total de Angola (UNITA) - rather than the state. Determining that as a result of UNITA's military actions, the situation in Angola constituted a threat to international peace and security, the council invoked chapter VII.1 The security council imposed a mandatory arms embargo (including related materiel) and a ban on petroleum and petroleum products to Angola in September 1993,2 with the objective of inducing UNITA to accept the terms ofthe peace accord signed in 19 9 1.3 When UNITA and its leader, Jonas Savimbi, refused to comply with the council's demands, the council choose to target UNITAs main source of funding - diamonds. Diamonds, however, were also an important legitimate source of funds for the Angolan government. Therefore, the council made the decision to target only diamonds not certified by the Angola government, further differentiating the target UNITA and the particular commodity of concern - the conflict diamonds sold by UNITA.Following the UNITA example, the council continued to focus on commodities as a way of pressuring conflict groups by tailoring the types of commodities sanctioned to the state in conflict. Timber sanctions, for example, were applied against Liberia, as timber represented a major source of the country's wealth, whereas in Cote d'Ivoire, the security council considered the possibility of targeting cocoa and cotton in addition to diamonds in order to maximize the impact of the sanctions on those responsible for the continuation of the conflict, while limiting the consequences to the general population. …