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Are Smart Sanctions Feasible?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2011

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This article reviews the literature on the “smart sanctions” approach developed in the late 1990s in response to the failure of conventional sanctions and questions the efficacy of this instrument. Smart sanctions modify the conventional sanctions tool by targeting the culpable political elites by means of arms embargoes, financial sanctions, and travel restrictions and by cushioning vulnerable groups (children, women, the infirm, and the elderly) by exempting specified commodities such as food and medical supplies from embargoes. This two-pronged sanctions approach is designed to hit the real perpetrators directly and spare potential innocent victims, thus leading to the speedier change of sanctionee behavior. Although the special design of smart sanctions may seem logically compelling and politically attractive, this article argues that the numerous operational problems involved, combined with the intricacies of the political processes of the UN Security Council, will make a smart sanctions regime difficult to establish and enforce effectively.

Type
Review Article
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 2002

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References

1 Cortright, David and Lopez, George A. (with Conroy, Richard W., Dashti-Gibson, Jaleh, and Wagler, Julia), eds., The Sanctions Decade: Assessing UN Strategies in the 1990s (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rien-ner, 2000)Google Scholar.

2 The targets are normally states. Only rarely have sanctions been imposed on nonstate actors, such as UNITA (in Angola in 1997) and the Taliban (in Afghanistan in 1999).

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14 Cortright and Lopez (fn. 1), chap. 11.

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17 The reports are available on the Internet at http://www.smartsancions.ch; this website also contains useful links to other sources of information.

18 Koenraad Van Brabant, “Can Sanctions Be Smarter? The Current Debate” (Report of a conference held in London, December 16-17,1998, May 1999); also available at http://www.smartsanctions.ch. “The full report with submitted papers is available on the Internet at http://www.bicc.de, including a number of links to additional sources of information. The contributions to these conferences and the reports of the intervening working group sessions have since been published in Brzoska, Michael, ed., Smart Sanctions: The Next Steps — The Debate on Arms Embargoes and Travel Sanctions within the 'Bonn-Berlin Process” (Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 2001)Google Scholar.

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24 Cortright and Lopez (fn. 1), 228.

25 Minear et al. (fn. 23).

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28 Cortright and Lopez (fn. 1), 242.

29 Rydell (fn. 27), 11.

30 Margaret Doxey, “United Nations Sanctions: Lessons of Experience” (Paper presented at the Second Interlaken Seminar on Targeting United Nations Financial Sanctions, March 29—31,1999); also available at http://www.smartsanctions.ch.

31 The illicit supply of arms was amply documented by the UN sanctions committee in the case of sanctions against UNITA. Cortright and Lopez (fn. 1) refer to the UN International Commission of Inquiry in Rwanda (UNICOI), which was created in September 1995 to investigate the violations of the arms embargo on the Hutu rebels responsible for the Rwandan genocide (p. 243). UNICOI produced several useful reports documenting embargo violations and recommending improved enforcement.

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34 United Nations, Security Council, Resolution S/RES/1196, September 16,1998.

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36 Between 1914 and 1998 there were 170 cases of sanctions in one form or another, 132 of which included financial sanctions, and in more than 40 percent of these cases they were applied alone.

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40 Strategic Planning Unit (fn. 35), 113.

41 United Nations, Security Council, Resolution S/RES/1173, June 12,1998, operative para. 11.

42 United Nations, Security Council, Resolution S/RES/917, May 6,1994, para. 4.

43 See http://www.oecd.org/fatf.

44 Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering, Review to Identify Noncooperative Countries or Territories: Increasing the Worldwide Effectiveness of Anti-Money Laundering Measures, Paris, June 2001;Google Scholar also available at http://www.oecd.org/fatf/FATDocs_en.htm#Non-Cooperative.

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46 Elliott (fn. 39).

47 This is based on the work of the “Working Group I: The Targeting of Financial Sanctions” (Findings presented at the Second Interlaken Seminar on Targeting United Nations Financial Sanctions, Switzerland, March 29-31,1999), 17-28; also available at http://www.smartsanctions.ch.

48 Ibid., 17.

49 Ibid.

50 Cf. Biersteker et al. (fn. 20).

51 See United Nations Security Council Resolutions S/RES/1127, August 28,1997 (Angola/UNITA); S/RES/1132, October 8,1997 (Sierra Leone); S/RES/1137, November 12,1997 (Iraq); S/RES/1171, June 5,1998 (Sierra Leone); and S/RES/1267, October 15, 1999 (Afghanistan/Taliban).

52 Richard Conroy, “Implementation Problems of Travel Bans: Practical and Legal Aspects” (Paper presented at the First Expert Seminar: Smart Sanctions—The Next Step, Bonn, November 21-23, 1999). 11; also available on the Internet at http://www.bicc.de.

53 Ibid., 12. The difficulty in identifying individuals may be illustrated by the efforts of national immigration authorities to establish familial relationships of asylees in family reunion cases, involving even DNA testing.

54 Conroy (fn. 52), 2.

55 Ibid., 3.

56 United Nations, Security Council, Resolution S/RES/1267, October 15,1999, para. 4.

57 In fact, taking photographs was officially forbidden.

58 United Nations, Sanctions Secretariat, Department of Political Affairs, “The Experience of the United Nations in Administering Arms Embargoes and Travel Sanctions” Paper presented at the First Expert Seminar: Smart Sanctions—The Next Step, Bonn, November 21-23,1999), 25; also available on the Internet at http://www.bicc.de.

59 Richard Conroy, “UN Travel Sanctions: An Evaluation with Policy Recommendations” (Paper presented to the UN Symposium on Targeted Sanctions, New York, December 7,1998).

60 See United Nations, Security Council, Note by the President of the Security Council: Work of the Sanctions Committees, January 1999.

61 Putnam, Robert D., “Diplomacy and Domestic Politics: The Logic of Two-Level Games,” International Organization 42 (Summer 1988), 434.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

62 Preeg, Ernest H., Feeling Good or Doing Good with Sanctions: Unilateral Economic Sanctions and the U.S. National Interest (Washington D.C.: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1999).Google Scholar

63 Cortright and Lopez (fn. 1), 3.

64 The two-level, game-theoretical approach could be applied at the sanctionee end as well, although the nature of the games would probably be different.

65 In some cases, arms embargoes are imposed on already warring parties in an attempt to reduce their capability to continue military operations.

66 Cortright and Lopez (fn. 1), 6.

67 Ibid., chap. 12; Willem van Genugten, Gerard de Groot, and Saskia Lavrijssen, “Guidelines on the Future Use of Sanctions: An Evaluation,” in van Genugten and de Groot (fn. 6).

68 Cortright and Lopez (fn. 1), 222.

69 Ibid., 231-32.

70 Crossete, Barbara, “Effort to Recast Iraq Oil Sanctions is Halted for Now,” New York Times, July 3, 2001.Google Scholar

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72 United Nations, Security Council, Resolution S/RES/1360, July 3,2001.

73 Cortright and Lopez (fn. 1), 237.

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75 Cortright and Lopez (fn. 1), 241.

76 Ibid., 242.

77 van Genugten et al. (fn. 67), 148-49.