Making Economic Sanctions Work 1

Making Economic
Sanctions Work
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Chantal de Jonge Oudraat

The UN Security Council has increasingly imposed economic sanctions to

prevent, manage or resolve violent conflict. Such sanctions have often entailed
tremendous economic costs to the target countries, but have failed to change
the political behaviour of their leaders. Moreover, they have had unintended
social and humanitarian effects, leading many commentators to question their
morality as a policy instrument.1 Notwithstanding these problems, for many
policy-makers sanctions remain attractive as an apparently inexpensive and
low-risk way of showing concern and taking action short of military force.2 It is
therefore important to develop a better understanding of the way economic
sanctions work in order to make them more effective, and to limit their harmful
humanitarian consequences.
The scholarly literature on sanctions is abundant and, on balance, sceptical.3
Most scholars and analysts have, however, paid too much attention to the
outcomes of sanction regimes, and too little to the conditions under which they
are imposed, the development of sanction strategies and problems of
implementation. They have also tended to study economic sanctions in
isolation, independent of other coercive policy instruments, notably the actual
use of force. In fact, economic sanctions, although certainly no panacea, can be
effective if they are part of comprehensive coercive strategies that include the
use of force, and if they are implemented properly. Many sanctions regimes in
the 1990s failed because they did not meet these two key conditions.

The track record

The theory behind sanctions is that they will produce economic deprivation,
triggering public anger and politically significant protest. This in turn will lead
to changes in the behaviour of trouble-making élites, or their removal from
power. Sanctions can be comprehensive, partial, or targeted against individual
corporations or people. They may encompass a multitude of services and

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Chantal de Jonge Oudraat is an Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International

Peace, Washington DC. A longer version of this article will be published in Chester A. Crocker,
Fen Osler Hampson and Pamela Aall (eds), Managing Global Chaos: Sources of and Responses
to International Conflict, second edition (Washington DC: United States Institute of Peace
Press, forthcoming 2001).
Survival, vol. 42, no. 3, Autumn 2000, pp. xx–xx © The International Institute for Strategic Studies
2 Chantal de Jonge Oudraat

goods, or they may be limited to specific services, such as air traffic, and
strategic goods, such as oil. Embargoes limit and ban exports to the target;
boycotts limit and ban imports from the target.
The objective of sanctions imposed by the UN under Chapter VII of its
Charter is ‘to maintain or restore international peace and security’. The Security
Council has significant latitude in defining threats to ‘international peace and
security’, and has shown great creativity in doing so. Indeed, it has increasingly
deemed internal conflicts and gross violations of human rights to be
justifications for international action. Since the end of the Cold War, the
Security Council has imposed comprehensive economic sanctions four times;
partial sanctions six times; targeted financial measures twice; and arms
embargoes 11 times. Between 1945 and 1988, sanctions of any type were
imposed only twice (see Table 1).

Comprehensive economic sanctions

Comprehensive economic sanctions were adopted against Iraq in 1990; against
the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) – that is, Serbia and Montenegro – in
1992; against the military junta in Haiti in 1994; and, again in 1994, against the
Bosnian Serbs. The results have been mixed.

Iraq
The sanctions against Iraq were imposed because of its invasion and illegal
occupation of Kuwait in August 1990.4 However, they did not have the desired
effect – Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait – so in January 1991 a coalition of states
led by the US used military force to expel Iraqi forces. Subsequently, sanctions
remained in place to force Iraqi compliance with the cease-fire resolution, in
particular its disarmament provisions.
In economic terms, Iraq was a good candidate for sanctions. Its economy
was weak following the eight-year war with Iran in the 1980s; it was dependent
on trade (oil exports accounted for more than 95% of the country’s foreign-
currency exchange receipts and 60% of its gross domestic product (GDP)); and
its level of foreign debt was high. In political terms, however, the country was
less vulnerable. Its mainly rural population lived under a strict and repressive
authoritarian regime, which did not tolerate political opposition. That Iraqi
President Saddam Hussein had little regard for his people had been
demonstrated dramatically in March 1988, when Halabja, a town 260
kilometres north-east of Baghdad, was attacked with chemical weapons. Over
5,000 people were killed, and many more seriously injured.
UN sanctions have now been in effect for over ten years, and
implementation of the sanction regime has been relatively good. These
measures have been very effective in terms of their economic impact. Iraq’s
GDP in 1993, at $10 billion, was close to 1960s levels. The annual value of
exports fell from $11.5bn in 1980 to $0.5bn in 1996, and over the same period,
exports plummeted from $28.3bn to $0.5bn.5 However, sanctions have been less
effective from a political point of view. Saddam remains in charge in Baghdad,
 Making Economic Sanctions Work 3

Table 1 UN Security Council sanctions, 1945–2000

Country Type of sanction Date imposed [I] Enabling UNSC
Date lifted [L] Resolution
Southern Rhodesia Comprehensive economic sanctions I 16 Dec 1966 232 (1966)
L 21 Dec 1979 460 (1979)
South Africa Arms embargo I 4 Nov 1977 418 (1977)
L 25 May 1994 919 (1994)
Iraq Comprehensive economic sanctions I 6 Aug 1990 661 (1990)1
Republics of the Arms embargo I 25 Sep 1991 713 (1991)2
Former Yugoslavia L 18 Jun 1996 1021 (1995)
FRY Comprehensive economic sanctions I 30 May 1992 757 (1992)3
L 22 Nov 1995 1022 (1995)4
FRY Arms embargo I 31 Mar 1998 1160 (1998)
Bosnian Serbs Comprehensive economic sanctions I 23 Sep 1994 942 (1994)
L1 Oct 1996 1074 (1996)
Somalia Arms embargo I 23 Jan 1992 733 (1992)
Libya Arms embargo I 31 Mar 1992
Partial economic sanctions L 5 Apr 1999 748 (1992)5
Liberia Arms embargo I 19 Nov 1992 788 (1992)
Haiti Arms embargo I 16 Jun 1993 841 (1993)
Partial economic sanctions L 27 Aug 1993 861 (1993)
Haiti Arms embargo I 18 Oct 1993 873 (1993)
Partial economic sanctions
Haiti Comprehensive economic sanctions I 21 May 1994 917 (1994)
L 16 Oct 1994 944 (1994)
UNITA/Angola Arms embargo I 15 Sep 1993 864 (1993)6
Partial economic sanctions
UNITA/Angola Targeted financial sanctions I 12 Jun 1998 1173 (1998)
Rwanda Arms embargo I 17 May 1994 918 (1994)7
L 16 Aug 1995 1011 (1995)8
Sudan Partial economic sanctions I 10 May 1996 1054 (1996)9
Sierra Leone Arms embargo I 8 Oct 1997 1132 (1997)
Partial economic sanctions L 5 Jun 1998 1171 (1998)10
Sierra Leone Partial economic sanctions I 5 Jul 2000 1306 (2000)
Taleban/ Afghanistan Targeted financial sanctions I 15 Nov 1999 1267 (1999)
Partial economic sanctions
Eritrea/Ethiopia Arms embargo I17 May 2000 1298 (2000)
Notes:
6
1
For subsequent resolutions, see Office of the See also UNSC Res. 1127 (1997), 28 August 1997;
Spokesman for the Secretary-General (OSSG), Use of and UNSC Res. 1130 (1997), 29 September 1997,
Sanctions Under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. which strengthened the sanction regime.
7
2
See also UNSC Res. 727 (1992), 8 January 1992, UNSC Res. 997 (1995), 9 June 1995, affirmed that
which reaffirms that the arms embargo applies to all the prohibition on the sale and supply of arms also
republics of the former Yugoslavia. applied to persons in states neighbouring Rwanda.
8
3
See also UNSC Res. 787 (1992), 16 November 1992; The sale and supply of arms to non-governmental
and UNSC Res. 820 (1993), 17 April 1993, which forces remained prohibited.
9
strengthened sanctions. UNSC 943 (1994), 23 See also UNSC Res. 1070 (1996), 16 August 1996,
September 1994, suspended certain sanctions. which foreshadowed an air embargo on Sudan. This
4
Sanctions were suspended in November 1995, and embargo never went into effect because of the
lifted on 1 October 1996. See UNSC Res. 1074, 1 expected humanitarian consequences.
10
October 1996. The arms embargo remained in place for members
5
See also UNSC Res. 883 (1993), 11 November 1993, of the former military junta and the RUF.
which tightened sanctions. Sanctions were Source: Use of Sanctions Under Chapter VII of the UN
suspended on 5 April 1999. See UN Security Council Charter, 31 March 2000, www.un.org/News/ossg/
Presidential Statement, S/PRST/1999/10, 8 April sanction.htm.
1999.
4 Chantal de Jonge Oudraat

and has not shelved plans to develop weapons of mass destruction. Moreover,
the sanctions regime has had grave humanitarian consequences, which have
undercut their legitimacy. Child mortality has more than doubled;
malnutrition is rampant in the south and centre of the country; and the
proportion of low-birth-weight babies rose from 4% in 1994 to approximately
25% in 1997.6 Exemptions for medicine and food, as well as the Oil for Food
Program adopted by the Security Council in August 1991, have not prevented
the Iraqi population from suffering. Under the terms of the programme,
revenues from the sale of Iraqi oil could be used to pay for food and
medicines.7 However, until December 1996 Baghdad refused to accept these
conditions, and frequently ordered insufficient food and medicines, hoarded
them in warehouses, illegally re-exported humanitarian supplies, or simply
stopped oil exports. The apparent strategy was to increase the misery of the
Iraqi people, thereby putting pressure on the Security Council to lift sanctions
altogether. To an extent this worked. By the end of 1999, France, Russia and
China in particular were lobbying for an end to sanctions. In December 1999,
the Security Council committed itself to suspending sanctions if Iraq accepted a
new weapons’ monitoring and verification system.8 Little headway was made
in the months that followed, and negotiations on such a system stalled.
The post-war sanctions, unlike their pre-war counterparts, were not
integrated into a comprehensive coercive strategy.9 After the war, outside
powers were not willing to mount a sustained military operation in case
sanctions failed.10 By limiting their options in this way, they may have
managed to keep Iraq from developing new weapons programmes, but this
came at heavy moral costs, and at the expense of the Iraqi population.

The FRY and the Bosnian Serbs

In May 1992, in response to the FRY’s involvement in the war in the war in
Bosnia--Herzegovina, the Security Council imposed full trade sanctions, a
freeze on the FRY government’s financial assets, a ban on maritime and air
traffic and a ban on participation in international sporting and cultural events.
Belgrade’s diplomatic status was also downgraded.11
Like Iraq, the FRY’s economy was vulnerable to sanctions. In the early
1990s, it was in the midst of a difficult transition from centralised to market-
based arrangements. Unemployment and inflation had been rising since 1981.
Foreign borrowing had become more difficult, and had been made conditional
on the implementation of economic reforms. Finally, the dissolution of
Yugoslavia in 1991 imposed heavy costs. The former republics of Yugoslavia
had been economically interdependent; in particular, they had relied heavily
on each other for food, energy supplies and manufactured goods. The FRY
produced only 20% of the fuel it needed, and depended on imports from
China, Russia, Iran and Romania for most of the rest.12 Although private
citizens had substantial foreign-currency reserves, these helped to mitigate the
effect of sanctions only in their initial stages.13
 Making Economic Sanctions Work 5

As in Iraq, however, the political conditions for imposing sanctions were

less than ideal. The country’s communist apparatus was still largely in place,
and Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic controlled the police forces and media.
The army was loyal to him, and the political opposition was weak. Finally,
Serbia was a predominantly rural state, and had been susceptible to strong
nationalist appeals and ethnic scapegoating since the late 1980s. Rather than
blaming Milosevic for their hardship, the Serbs ‘rallied around the flag’ and
blamed the UN instead.
Initially, sanctions had little effect on the war in Bosnia; indeed, in 1992
systematic forced expulsions of civilians took place in eastern, northern and
north-western parts of the country. In response to numerous reports of
violations, the Security Council decided in November 1992 to strengthen the
sanctions regime, and decreed that the transhipment through the FRY of
petroleum, coal, steel and other products was prohibited. In addition, the
European Union (EU) and the Conference for Security and Cooperation in
Europe (CSCE) started a programme to help neighbouring states to implement,
monitor and enforce the sanction regimes.14
Meanwhile, diplomatic efforts to negotiate a truce made some headway. On
17 April 1993, the Security Council formally endorsed the comprehensive
peace plan for Bosnia presented by UN negotiator Cyrus Vance and his EU
counterpart, David Owen. At the same it, the Council threatened the FRY with
tougher sanctions if the plan was not accepted by all parties within nine days.
Milosevic endorsed the plan on 25 April. However, the Bosnian Serbs opposed
it, and the more drastic sanctions went into effect the following day.15 On 2
May, Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian-Serb leader, agreed to put the plan to a
popular vote later that month.
Owen was convinced that Milosevic had given up the idea of forming a
‘Greater Serbia’, and believed that the threat of more stringent sanctions, as
well as a threat to use force, had been instrumental in bringing about a change
in Milosevic’s position. Owen had hinted repeatedly that if the Serbs did not
accept the plan, Western countries would contemplate using force, and the
sanctions resolution of April 1993 had explicitly authorised states to do so to
enforce the sanctions regime. Owen believed that Belgrade would not have
objected if the Vance–Owen plan had been imposed on the Bosnian Serbs
militarily.16 However, the Clinton administration’s reservations about the plan,
along with dissent among the Western allies, made such a course impossible.17
Washington had made it clear that US troops would only be available if all
parties consented to the Vance–Owen plan. The Europeans, in turn, were
unwilling to impose it on the Bosnian Serbs without US support. The timid
Western reaction to the Serb assaults on Srebrenica in April 1993 drove this
point home.18 In addition, the debate in early May 1993 between the US and
Europe over ‘lift and strike’ (the US proposal to lift the arms embargo on the
Bosnian government and to strike Bosnian-Serb targets from the air) showed
the Bosnian Serbs that none of the Western powers had much stomach for
forceful military action. Not surprisingly, they rejected the Vance–Owen plan
on 16 May 1993. Ultimately, Milosevic’s position hardened, and he quickly re-
6 Chantal de Jonge Oudraat

established full relations.19 This was the first missed opportunity to end the war
in Bosnia. Disagreements among the Western allies had undercut the threat of
more stringent economic sanctions, as well as the threat to use force.
The second missed opportunity for the effective use of sanctions came in
1994. In July, the Contact Group (comprising France, Germany, Russia, the UK
and the US) presented a new peace plan linked to a partial lifting of UN
sanctions. Again, the Western powers had foreshadowed the possible use of
military force. Again, Milosevic gave his support to the proposal. He also
threatened to sever political and economic ties with the Bosnian Serbs if they
rejected it. The promise of a partial lifting of sanctions was alluring. Moreover,
the active involvement of the US in the Contact Group, and the creation of the
Bosnian/Muslim-Croat Federation, now made the threat of force more
credible. Even so, the Bosnian Serbs rejected the plan on 3 August. The
following day, Milosevic, as promised, broke off economic and political
relations with them. His reward was however, limited, consisting of a lifting of
the ban on all civilian flights to and from Belgrade, the reintroduction of a ferry
service to Italy, and the lifting of the ban on participation in international
sporting events and cultural exchanges. Meanwhile, the Security Council
imposed sanctions on the Bosnian Serbs, prohibiting all economic contact and
ordering states to refrain from holding talks with the Bosnian-Serb leadership.20
However, the Western allies soon revealed themselves to be as feeble as
before. The US back-pedalled on its threats to launch military strikes and,
before long, the Western coalition was again at loggerheads over ‘lift and
strike’. Milosevic continued to support the Bosnian-Serb military leadership,
and the border between the FRY and areas controlled by the Bosnian Serbs
remained extremely porous. It is arguable that a more substantial suspension of
sanctions at this point would have led Milosevic to take a firmer line with the
Bosnian Serbs. Although this might have been morally difficult, this strategy,
coupled with direct military action against the Bosnian Serbs, was adopted in
1995.
Most observers agree that, after 1993, the sanction regime was relatively
well implemented. But there is little consensus on the political effectiveness of
the sanctions against the FRY. Some observers view them as remarkably
successful; others believe that they had no impact whatsoever.21 Whatever the
case, there were surely missed opportunities. Had the threat of more stringent
sanctions been supported by a credible threat of military action, the war in
Bosnia might have ended in 1993 or 1994. Eventually, after the fall of
Srebrenica in August 1995, the US held direct talks with Milosevic. Washington
convinced him that, unless he agreed to the peace plan that the US had put on
the table, military force would be used. This, rather than the material effect of
sanctions, appears to have been what moved Milosevic to put pressure on the
Bosnian Serbs to stop the war. Economic sanctions combined with the threat of
military force – not the long-term effects of sanctions alone – was the key to
changing Milosevic’s behaviour.
 Making Economic Sanctions Work 7

Haiti
The UN Security Council threatened Haiti with an oil and arms embargo in
June 1993 in order to return to power the country’s democratically elected
president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who had been ousted by a military coup in
September 1991.22 All economic indicators, including Haiti’s extreme
dependence on outside oil supplies and on the US for most of its trade, led
many to believe that the junta would respond to economic pressure.23 Indeed,
two days before sanctions were to take effect, it agreed to enter into
negotiations with Aristide. In July, an agreement was reached allowing for the
creation of a new government, the deployment of UN peacekeepers and the
return of Aristide.24 But delays in implementation led to the unravelling of the
agreement. By October, the Haitian military and its supporters had stocked up
on supplies and mustered enough confidence to defy UN Security Council, and
prevent peacekeeepers from deploying in Haiti.25
Sanctions were reimposed, and UN member-states were authorised to
enforce them with a naval blockade.26 In December 1993, the Security Council
warned the Haitian military to implement the July agreement or face stronger
sanctions. But, because of divisions among Council members, the deadline of
15 January 1994 passed without any action. Although in May 1994, the Security
Council at last approved a total trade ban (except for medical supplies and
foodstuffs), the strengthened sanctions had little effect on the military regime.
In July 1994, the junta expelled all UN officers. Faced with this new act of
hostility, the Security Council authorised a military operation to depose the
regime.27 US troops landed on 19 September 1994, Aristide was returned to
power on 15 October and sanctions were lifted soon afterwards.28 Since then,
Haiti has struggled to keep violence under control, install a democratic regime
and resuscitate its economy.
As with the FRY, there were missed opportunities in Haiti. The weak
reaction of the UN and the US to rising violence in the latter half of 1993
prolonged the life of the junta and the suffering of the Haitian people. As with
Iraq, although Haiti’s economy was vulnerable to sanctions, the brutal nature
of the country’s military regime, to which the suffering of the country’s poor
was of no concern, should have given outside countries pause. Conversely, the
humanitarian effects of sanctions were considerable, and could have been
easily foreseen. Haiti was the poorest country in the Western hemisphere.29
Over 70% of its people lived in abject poverty, and had no ready access to safe
drinking water or medical care. Sanctions, even though not well-implemented,
accelerated the economy’s decline, penalising Aristide and his supporters more
than the ruling élites.30
In contrast to the Iraqi and Yugoslav cases, the sanctions against Haiti were
poorly implemented. The military and the ruling élite managed to obtain most
basic goods, and quite a few not-so-basic ones. Many states considered
implementing and enforcing the sanctions regime to be a US problem, and
made little effort to do it themselves. While mounting a naval blockade or
closing the Haitian–Dominican border presented few technical or resource
problems for the US, it did pose political ones. Consequent delays gave Haiti’s
8 Chantal de Jonge Oudraat

rulers opportunities to set up alternative supply routes, and to establish

networks for the illegal trade in drugs and other contraband.
Ultimately, however, Haiti shows that economic sanctions can be effective if
all coercive options – including the use of military force – remain open.31 Once
the credibility of enforcing powers is compromised, threatening to use
sanctions is no longer sufficient. At that point, sanctions have to be
complemented by military action.

Partial and targeted sanctions

The Security Council imposed partial economic sanctions against Libya in 1992,
the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) in 1993,
Sudan in 1996, Sierra Leone in 1997 and 2000, and the Taleban in Afghanistan in
1999. In only the cases of UNITA and Sierra Leone, however, was there the
general objective of stopping civil strife.32

UNITA in Angola
An arms and oil embargo was imposed on UNITA in 1993 following Savimbi’s
refusal to honour the results of UN-supervised elections, and the rebel group’s
return to war.33 Despite repeatedly threatening to impose additional sanctions,
the Security Council did nothing until 1997, when travel and diplomatic
sanctions were imposed.34 Fighting nonetheless escalated in 1998, prompting
the Council in June to freeze UNITA’s financial assets, ban all financial
transactions with the group, and prohibit the trade of Angolan diamonds not
certified by the government. Travel restrictions on UNITA officials were also
tightened.35
The implementation and enforcement of these measures were, however,
dismal. Guerrilla groups are not particularly vulnerable to normal trade
sanctions, mainly because they do not engage in normal trade. In addition,
independent rebel groups generally withstand economic or political pressures
well: they have a high economic pain threshold, and their members are
generally well-motivated. Most importantly, UNITA had access to diamonds,
which enabled it to keep its military campaign alive. The bulk of UNITA’s
assets are in the form of rough diamonds, which are sold as needed. Estimates
of UNITA’s earnings from diamond sales between January 1993 and December
1998 range from $2.3bn to $3.7bn.36 These revenues enabled UNITA to build a
highly mobile and well-armed army of 35,000 soldiers. Neighbouring countries
– Burkina Faso, Namibia, Rwanda, South Africa and Zambia – helped UNITA
to smuggle its diamonds out of Angola, and provided safe havens for the
group’s diamond transactions.37 The group also made significant amounts of
money from landing fees for aircraft bringing in food, medicines and other
commodities. In 1996–97, when commercial activity in Angola was at its peak,
it may have earned as much as $5 million a month in this way.38
Individual targeted financial sanctions were adopted against UNITA
officials in 1998. In theory, these measures are an attractive alternative to a
comprehensive or partial approach since they offer the prospect of avoiding
 Making Economic Sanctions Work 9

costs to neighbouring countries, as well as minimising the impact on innocent

people. Their failure against UNITA, however, demonstrates the myriad
problems associated with them. The true ownership of assets can be concealed
in many ways; assets can be swiftly transferred to circumvent sanctions; and
many countries have neither the technology nor the domestic legislation to
monitor financial transactions. Moreover, Internet banking has opened up new
ways to move money around – ways that experts on sanctions and money-
laundering have only just begun to analyse. Many of the techniques for making
targeted financial sanctions work borrow from traditional techniques for
detecting money-laundering. These techniques are progressing, yet there
remains a wide variety of effective laundering methods.
Given the ineffectiveness of sanctions in changing UNITA’s behaviour, the
UN Security Council decided in 1999 to adopt a different strategy, and shifted
its focus to the ‘sanction-busters’. It commissioned a report on violations, and
hoped to induce better third-party compliance through a ‘naming-and-
shaming’ campaign. The report, published in March 2000, broke with past UN
practice and openly accused individuals, including acting and former heads of
state, of violating the sanctions regime.39 Within the UN, the report received a
reserved welcome, and it remains to be seen whether it will have concrete
results.40

Sierra Leone
In May 1997, the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) overthrew the
civilian government of Ahmed Kabbah. Five months later, the Security Council
imposed an oil and arms embargo against Sierra Leone, along with travel
restrictions on members of the junta, and authorised the Nigerian-led Military
Observer Group (ECOMOG) of the Economic Community of West African
States (ECOWAS) to enforce these measures, by force if necessary.41 Initially,
sanctions seemed to have a positive effect. Only 15 days after they were
imposed, the junta accepted an agreement that called for the restoration of the
elected civilian government and the demobilisation of Sierra Leone’s armed
forces and rebel groups. However, as in Haiti junta leaders failed to implement
the agreement. In February 1998, ECOMOG troops toppled the military
regime, and Kabbah was returned to power. The sanctions against AFRC
members remained in place, as did measures against the Revolutionary United
Front (RUF), a rebel group which had sided with it. These had little effect. In
October, the RUF launched a major offensive, seizing the capital Freetown in
January 1999. Although Nigerian troops reinstalled the civilian government,
much of the country remained in rebel hands.
Under international pressure, from the US in particular, Kabbah and RUF
leader Foday Sankoh negotiated an agreement in July 1999. A government of
national unity was established, the rebels were given amnesty and the UN was
invited to oversee the agreement’s implementation. In May 2000, however, it
unravelled. Like Savimbi in Angola, Sankoh cornered a substantial part of
Sierra Leone’s diamond trade. The Sierra Leone government is estimated to
10 Chantal de Jonge Oudraat

have lost between $200m and $300m annually to smuggling, mainly by the
RUF.42 Until his arrest in May by British forces, Sankoh had secured the
cooperation of Liberian President Charles Taylor, and most of the RUF’s
‘conflict diamonds’ passed through Liberia, which sold false certificates to hide
their origin. Since the mid-1990s, Liberia has exported some 31m carats – more
than 200 years’ worth of its national diamond-mining capacity.43 In July 2000,
after several hundred UN peacekeepers has been taken hostage, the Security
Council imposed a boycott on rough diamonds from Sierra Leone.44 But
without monitoring and enforcement mechanisms, these sanctions are likely to
have little effect.
Partial and targeted sanctions in Angola and Sierra Leone failed because
they were stand-alone measures, not part of a coercive strategy; and because of
poor implementation. An energetic response to the first signs of defiance may
well have led to very different outcomes in both countries. Half-measures, on
the other hand, stood no chance of success.

Arms embargoes
Arms embargoes are a special kind of economic sanction. Their primary
objective is not to inflict economic pain, but to deny access to weapons, thereby
inducing military stalemates and preventing conflicts from escalating. They are
also intended to limit third-party involvement in conflicts. Arms embargoes
have been imposed 11 times since 1991, in most cases as elements of larger
economic-sanction regimes. Only in Somalia, Liberia and Rwanda, and in the
FRY in 1998 and Ethiopia and Eritrea two years later, did the UN Security
Council impose stand-alone arms embargoes.
Imposing arms embargoes when conflicts are active is often seen as a logical
first step towards halting violence. This can, however, have unintended effects,
particularly in cases of internal conflict. Embargoes tend to favour the warring
factions that have access to government military ordnance and industries,
while making it more difficult for others to organise and defend themselves.
They can thus favour one side over the other, rather than pushing both towards
a military stalemate and a political settlement.45 (The blanket arms embargo
imposed in September 1991 on all the republics of the former Yugoslavia
greatly favoured the Serbs and, in the Bosnian conflict, was extremely costly for
the Bosnian Muslims. This explains why the Security Council did not impose
an arms embargo on Burundi and Sudan in 1996, or on Afghanistan in 1999.)
As with other forms of sanctions, third-party compliance is also a problem.
Internal conflicts are usually fought with small arms and light weapons –
mortars, machine guns, rifles, machetes and the like. The international trade in
weapons such as these is difficult to regulate, especially since much of it is
conducted on the black market.46

Framing a sanctions strategy

A sound sanctions strategy should contain three elements. It must assess the
target’s strengths and weaknesses, so as to determine how effective sanctions
 Making Economic Sanctions Work 11

will be; determine how sanctions should be imposed, and what form they
should take; and stipulate the conditions under which sanctions should be
lifted.

Assessing the target

The effectiveness of coercive efforts, including sanctions, largely depends on
the economic and political characteristics of the target (see Table 2). These will
dictate whether it is able to withstand economic pressure and devise counter-
threats and actions that could neutralise the effects of sanctions.
Three economic characteristics of a sanctions target are particularly
important:

• the type of economy, including its nature (market or centralised), level of

development and general health;47
• export and import dependencies; and
• the volume of overseas assets.

The economic impact of sanctions depends on how quickly the target economy
can adjust to them. This differs from one economic system to the next. Market
economies are generally more vulnerable to economic sanctions than centrally
planned ones, because in market economies the allocation and distribution of
resources are dependent on external price signals, instead of decisions by
central authorities. (In the FRY, for example, Milosevic could ease the impact of
sanctions by instructing state enterprises to keep under-employed workers on
the payroll.) Developing and rural economies, because they are generally more
labour-intensive than capital-intensive, are also less vulnerable to sanctions.
Depressed economies or those in recession are more vulnerable than robust
and expansionist economies. That said, outside powers should be careful about
imposing sanctions on developing or troubled economies. Sanctions aggravate
existing developmental problems, and may easily result in humanitarian crises.
Moreover, imposing sanctions in cases such as these may give political élites
convenient excuses for the dire state of their countries’ economies.
Foreign trade is another good indicator of economic vulnerability. Countries
that are highly reliant on trade with a limited number of partners are especially
vulnerable. Haiti, because of its dependence on the US, was thus considered a
‘good’ candidate for sanctions. This vulnerability increases if exports or
imports consist of raw materials or industrial goods, as opposed to small
consumer goods. The former are more important to keeping economies going,
while it is more difficult to smuggle raw materials, except diamonds, across
borders. The presence of strategic resources such as oil or gas may make targets
less vulnerable to sanctions, particularly if they are relatively self-reliant in
other sectors. But if the export of strategic resources is their main source of
income, as in Iraq, sanctions may have a sharp impact.
Finally, it is important to measure the volume of the target’s overseas assets.
For countries that are heavily reliant on foreign banks or international financial
institutions, financial sanctions are a promising choice. The importance of
12 Chantal de Jonge Oudraat

Table 2 Vulnerability to sanctions

Economic characteristics
More vulnerable Less vulnerable
Market economy Centralised Economy
Highly developed economy Under-developed economy
Weak economy Healthy economy
High dependence on Low dependence on
exports and imports exports and imports
High dependence on Low dependence on
international capital markets international capital markets

Social and political characteristics

More vulnerable Less vulnerable
Industrial society Rural society
Ethnically mixed Ethnically homogenous
Internally fragmented Internally cohesive
Democratic regime Authoritarian regime
Strong political opposition Weak political opposition

foreign investment and remittances from nationals abroad is also a good

indicator of a target’s economic vulnerability. If financial transactions like
remittances are not covered by a sanctions regime, they may enable targeted
countries to weather the impact of sanctions, as occurred in the FRY.
The key social and political characteristics of a target are:

• the type of society, including its nature (industrial or rural), ethnic and
religious make-up and the degree of internal cohesion;
• the nature of the regime; and
• the strength of the opposition.

Industrialised societies, which have sizeable middle classes of business people

and retailers, are more sensitive to economic sanctions than rural societies.
These middle classes are likely to push for negotiations and compromise.
Moreover, group cohesion tends to be weaker in industrialised societies than in
rural ones.48 The level of a society’s cohesion is also influenced by its ethnic and
religious make-up. An ethnically or religiously homogenous country will be
more cohesive than an ethnically or religiously mixed one.
The political character of the regime will also influence whether sanctions
will succeed. Authoritarian regimes are generally less vulnerable than
democratic ones, because they are usually better able to control their political
 Making Economic Sanctions Work 13

opponents. Indeed, the existence of a political opposition is often cited as one of

the critical conditions for the success of sanctions, since one of the principal
aims is to bolster political opposition to a regime. The FRY case, however,
suggests that imposing comprehensive sanctions when the opposition is weak
is counter-productive. Ruling élites may depict their domestic opponents as
traitors, and thus amplify existing jingoistic attitudes. This in turn insulates the
political leadership from criticism, and allows it to draw strength from its
defiance of outside forces.
When a country is in the midst of a civil war, sanctions will often have
asymmetric effects because different groups will almost always have different
vulnerabilities. Identifying the strengths and weaknesses of these groups,
including the varying effects sanctions may have on them, is essential to avoid
hurting the ‘good guys’, as happened in Haiti. If a country’s political system
has collapsed, it is hard to identify a target for sanctions. In such cases, they
may be inadvisable.

Determining tactics
Once the target’s strengths and weaknesses are properly assessed and outside
powers have determined that sanctions can be used to bring about political
change, they should decide which tactics are likely to be most effective: a swift
and crushing blow, or a gradual tightening of the screws. Two schools of
thought dominate the debate on sanction tactics. One theory maintains that
sanctions are most effective when they are imposed immediately and
comprehensively. Those who subscribe to this line of thinking argue that
sanctions should be imposed early in a crisis, since gradual imposition gives
the target time to adjust by, for example, stockpiling supplies, finding
alternative trade routes and partners, and moving financial assets.49
The other school of thought contends that sanctions are most effective when
imposed gradually and incrementally. Proponents argue that comprehensive
sanctions are the economic equivalent of wars of attrition, which will almost
inevitably cause people to resist and rally behind the regime. Moreover, they
argue that sanctions are an instrument through which to bring parties to the
negotiating table. Comprehensive sanctions may have a greater impact on a
target’s economy, this does not necessarily translate into changes in political
behaviour; on the contrary, it may solidify the target’s positions.50
Both schools of thought are valid some of the time: again, the political and
economic characteristics of a target are the keys to determining which road to
choose. Partial sanctions may be sufficient when target economies are
extremely vulnerable, or when dealing with weak economies. In such cases,
comprehensive sanctions may easily lead to a humanitarian emergency. Partial
measures may also be sufficient when dealing with countries which have
democratic regimes, strong political oppositions and industrialised, atomised
societies. Conversely, centralised economies, authoritarian regimes, rural
societies and countries with weak political oppositions and no trade or capital-
market dependencies should probably be hit immediately with comprehensive
14 Chantal de Jonge Oudraat

sanctions. Outside powers should also more readily consider threatening to use
force in such cases.
In determining whether to strike quickly and hard, or slowly and softly,
outside powers should consider the seriousness of the situation at hand.
Sanctions should be proportionate to the objective: the more ambitious the
goal, the stronger the sanctions regime. However, when outside powers
confront gross violations of human rights or genocide, they may want to forego
sanctions altogether, and intervene militarily. In all cases, the threat of force
should remain on the table.

Lifting sanctions
Finally, outside powers need to formulate the conditions under which
sanctions should be lifted or abandoned. These exit strategies should not be
confused with exit schedules. Efficacious exit strategies will identify the
conditions under which sanctions can be lifted, without imposing rigid,
artificial deadlines. Sanctions may be lifted either because the behaviour that
led to their imposition has changed, or because they have demonstrably failed
to bring this about.51
Since comprehensive sanctions often have devastating humanitarian
implications, they are politically and morally difficult to sustain and, if kept in
place for too long, they can have untoward effects. In other words, sanctions
tend to become less effective the longer they are maintained. The target has
time to adapt, increasing its self-sufficiency and reducing its dependence on the
outside world. It may also develop new links with states not fully participating
in the sanction regime. Finally, the humanitarian situation in a targeted country
may become explosive, which may make it difficult to justify continuing
sanctions.
If imposing sanctions has no immediate effect, two alternatives should be
considered. First, one can promise to lift some elements of the sanction regime
if the target starts engaging in ‘good’ behaviour. That said, lifting sanctions
before all conditions are met might be tricky, as was shown in Haiti, when the
Security Council decided to lift sanctions before Aristide had been restored to
power. The Haitian military took advantage of this opportunity to stockpile
strategic goods and, once resupplied, resumed its defiance of the Security
Council. A ‘carrot-and-stick’ approach thus requires accurate and timely
assessments of the target’s aspirations and intentions.
The second alternative is to increase the pressure on targets by threatening
to use military force. The threat may have to be made early if the target is not
particularly vulnerable economically or politically. The cases of Haiti and the
FRY suggest that the threat to use force makes sanctions more effective by
giving credibility and gravity to the coercive effort.

Addressing implementation problems

A sound sanctions strategy is essential to the eventual success of a sanctions
regime. But however good the strategy, the measures must be fully
 Making Economic Sanctions Work 15

implemented on the ground if they are to remain effective and credible. Every
sanction regime has suffered from implementation problems. Four in particular
stand out.
The first is that sanction regimes have been interpreted differently by
different states. Although UN sanctions are supposed to be imposed
collectively, implementing them is left to individual countries, which
invariably have to adopt national legislation to do so. The language of most UN
sanction resolutions is often the result of compromises, with vague and
ambiguous wording.52 Thus, the interpretation of sanction resolutions will
often vary from state to state, which leads to uneven implementation. Although
most UN sanction regimes have Sanctions Committees, tasked with examining
and promulgating guidelines to facilitate implementation, such interpretative
guidance is not binding on UN members. Giving the committees interpretative
authority could enhance the implementation of sanction regimes. In addition, a
single Sanctions Committee could be established, which would deal with all
UN sanctions regimes.53
The second problem is that different states monitor sanctions differently.
Few have the expertise or resources needed to establish or maintain efficient
monitoring mechanisms.54 International organisations can be helpful when it
comes to monitoring sanction regimes. The EU’s efforts to monitor the
sanctions against the FRY and Bosnia were effective, and benefited from
unprecedented international arrangements designed to assist states – the FRY’s
neighbours in particular – to implement and enforce the measures decreed by
the UN Security Council.55 Most UN Sanctions Committees, on the other hand,
do not have the resources they need for effective monitoring. Unlike the EU,
the UN is not able to deploy several hundred people in the field. Plans to
strengthen capacities in this area surface regularly, but the UN has not been
provided with sufficient resources to address these problems.56 As the number
of organisations involved in monitoring and enforcement increases, it will
become all the more important to ensure coordination among them, and
precisely to define and allocate their responsibilities.
The third problem concerns non-compliance and enforcement. While the
Security Council can decide to impose economic sanctions, it has no way of
forcing or encouraging recalcitrant states to adhere to them unless it imposes
sanctions on these states as well. Moreover, targeted states or organisations
may engage in countermeasures, making the cost of compliance too high for
third parties. The FRY, for example, threatened neighbouring countries with
countermeasures, making them extremely wary of enforcing the sanction
regime.57 Handling enforcement problems is generally left to individual states
but, since sanction resolutions rarely include provisions that specify penalties
for violations, there is little uniformity. Harmonising national legislation in this
area (with UN guidance) would prevent individual and corporate sanction-
busters from simply moving from one country to another in order to avoid
prosecution and punishment. Experience with recent sanction regimes has also
pointed to the desirability of establishing national sanction-implementation
16 Chantal de Jonge Oudraat

offices, which would coordinate enforcement at the national and international

levels.58 Such a system is particularly important with respect to targeted
financial sanctions.
The fourth problem concerns cost. Sanctions often carry with them
substantial negative effects for third-party states. Without compensation, these
countries may not be sufficiently motivated to implement and enforce the
regime in question. Article 50 of the UN Charter gives states the right to consult
with the Security Council if they suffer unduly from sanctions imposed on
other countries. Until 1990, the Council received only four such requests and
took action in only two of these cases.59 However, the Iraqi sanction regime
imposed in 1990 triggered requests for assistance from 21 states, which
estimated their total losses at more than $30bn.60 This prompted then UN
Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali to urge the Security Council to devise
measures to insulate states from the unintended negative effects of sanction
regimes.61 Boutros-Ghali subsequently proposed establishing a body to assess
the likely impact of sanctions on both the target country and others before they
are imposed; to monitor their implementation; to measure their effects, which
would enable the Security Council to maximise their impact while minimising
collateral damage; to ensure the delivery of humanitarian assistance to
vulnerable groups; and to evaluate claims submitted by states under Article
50.62
Many countries opposed the plan on the grounds that the Security Council
would become paralysed if it had to guarantee compensation to states for
collateral damage before deciding on sanctions.63 Moreover, they argued, in
situations where the maintenance or restoration of international peace and
security were at stake, the Council had to be able to act swiftly. This would
make prior consultations difficult, if not impossible.64 Opponents also raised
questions about the methodology to be employed to assess the losses of
affected countries. Boutros-Ghali argued that, since decisions to impose
sanctions are taken collectively, their costs should also be borne collectively,
just as the cost of peacekeeping is met by all UN member states.65 Until now,
compensation for third parties has been handled on an ad hoc, case-by-case
basis.66 While this will probably continue for some time, sanctions regimes
would be more effective if third parties suffering collateral damage were
compensated for it. Contrary to popular belief , economic sanctions are not
cost-free.

Conclusion
The track record of UN sanction regimes has been mixed. Neither
comprehensive nor partial sanctions has succeeded in stopping civil strife in
the countries that they have targeted. Targeted financial sanctions, while
attractive in theory, remain extremely difficult to implement, requiring
monitoring and enforcement capabilities that most countries do not possess,
and that may be too expensive for them to acquire. In addition, many sanction
regimes have had secondary and unintended consequences. Comprehensive,
 Making Economic Sanctions Work 17

and even partial or selective, sanctions risk sparking humanitarian crises in

target countries. Arms embargoes may keep victims defenceless, while air-
traffic restrictions may impede the delivery of humanitarian relief. These
difficulties notwithstanding, the missed opportunities in the FRY and Haiti,
and even to some extent in Sierra Leone, show that sanctions can bring about
political change – if certain conditions are met. The misapplication of this
policy instrument in the 1990s should not lead us to remove sanctions from our
policy repertory. Two conditions need to be met for them to be effective.
First, sanctions need to be part of a comprehensive coercive strategy that
includes the threat and use of military force. Thus, sanctions should be seen as
part of a coercive continuum. A sound coercive strategy will tell outside
powers when and how to impose sanctions, when and how to step up coercive
pressure, and when to change instruments. Knowledge of the target is essential
here. Because of their potentially serious social, economic and political effects,
sanctions should not stay in place for long periods. Thus, the parties imposing
sanctions must consider what course they will take should sanctions fail.
Second, sanctions need to be implemented and complied with by third
parties, and monitoring and enforcement mechanisms need to be put in place.
Imposing sanctions, like using force, requires resources. Neighbouring
countries might need to be compensated for economic losses, and they might
need assistance in setting up monitoring and enforcement mechanisms. Most
importantly, to ensure third-party compliance a broad international consensus
on the use of coercive action needs to be built. An interested supporting party
has to take the lead in defining the precise objectives that the sanctions seek to
achieve, and keeping the relevant international actors focused on them. In the
case of Iraq, the US has played such a role. In the FRY and Haiti, the US
hesitated and the sanctions efforts faltered.
If outside powers are not willing to consider using military force, they
should not contemplate imposing economic sanctions. Sanctions should only
be considered if the problem is serious enough to ultimately warrant the use of
force. Coercion is a serious business, especially when it has devastating
humanitarian consequences – as economic sanctions generally do. States
should go down this road only if they are prepared to meet the costs of
coercion, and only if they are determined to see the process through.
18 Chantal de Jonge Oudraat
Notes
1
See, for example, Joy Gordon, ‘A
Peaceful, Silent, Deadly Remedy: The
Ethics of Economic Sanctions’, Ethics and
International Affairs, vol. 13, 1999, pp.
123–50; John and Karl Mueller,
‘Sanctions of Mass Destruction’, Foreign
Affairs, vol. 78, no. 3, May–June 1999, pp.
43–53; Thomas G. Weiss, David
Cortright, George Lopez and Larry
Minear, Political Gain and Civilian Pain:
Humanitarian Impacts of Economic
Sanctions (Lanham, MD: Rowman and
Littlefield, 1997); and Patrick Clawson,
‘Sanctions as Punishment, Enforcement,
and Prelude to Further Action’, Ethics
and International Affairs, vol. 7, 1993, pp.
17–37.
2
Part of the popularity of sanctions
stems from the fact that, while
international law substantially
constrains the use of force, there is no
major legal impediment to imposing
sanctions. The UN Charter does not
contain a specific prohibition, and does
not prohibit states from imposing
sanctions unilaterally.
3
For a very sceptical view, see Robert
Pape, ‘Why Economic Sanctions Do Not
Work’, International Security, vol. 22, no.
2, Autumn 1997, pp. 90–136. On
sanctions more generally, see David
Cortright, George A. Lopez et al., The
Sanctions Decade: Assessing UN Strategies
in the 1990s (Boulder, CO: Lynne
Rienner, 2000); Margaret Doxey, United
Sanctions Sanctions: Current Policy Issues
(Halifax, NS: Centre for Foreign Policy
Studies, Dalhousie University, June
1999); Richard N. Haass (ed.), Economic
Sanctions and American Diplomacy (New
York: Council on Foreign Relations,
1998); and Gary Clyde Hufbauer, Jeffrey
J. Schott and Kimberly Ann Elliot,
Economic Sanctions Reconsidered: History
and Current Policy, third edition
(Washington DC: Institute for
International Economics, 2000).
4
Iraq invaded Kuwait on 2 August 1990.
The UN Security Council voted on
multilateral sanctions on 6 August. It
barred all imports from, and exports to,
Iraq, except medical supplies, foodstuffs
and other items of humanitarian need.
See UNSC Res. 661(1990). See also UNSC
Res. 665(1991), 25 August 1991, which
authorised enforcement of Resolution
661 (1990) in the form of a naval
blockade.
5
See Sarah Graham-Brown, Sanctioning
Saddam: The Politics of Intervention in Iraq
(London and New York: I. B. Tauris,
1999) p. 161.
6
Ibid. Beth Osborne Daponte and
Richard Garfield estimate that child
mortality quadrupled between
September and December 1990. See ‘The
Effect of Economic Sanctions on the
Mortality of Iraqi Children Prior to the
1991 Persian Gulf War’, American Journal
of Public Health, vol. 90, no. 4, April 2000,
pp. 546–52.
7
See UNSC Res. 706 (1991), 15 August
1991. See also UNSC Res. 712 (1991), 19
September 1991; UNSC Res. 778 (1992), 2
October 1992; and UNSC Res. 986 (1995),
14 April 1995. The latter established new
rules for the Oil for Food Program, and
authorised the sale of Iraqi oil up to the
value of $1 billion every three months. In
February 1998, this amount was raised to
$5.25bn every six months. See UNSC
Res. 1153 (1998), 20 February 1998. In
December 1999, the ceiling on oil exports
was removed. See UNSC Res. 1284
(1999), 17 December 1999.
8
The United Nations Monitoring,
Verification and Inspection Commission
(UNMOVIC), which was established by
UNSC Res. 1284 (1999), 17 December
1999.
9
Shortly after the invasion of Kuwait in
1990, US President George Bush realised
that economic sanctions alone would not
dislodge Iraqi forces, and so began a
massive deployment of military forces in
the Gulf. See Lawrence Freedman and
Efraim Karsh, The Gulf Conflict 1990–

1991: Diplomacy and War in the New World
Order (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1993), pp. 203, 209.
10
The US regularly launched limited air
strikes against Iraq, but these fell short
of a sustained military campaign and
were only partially supported by US
allies.
11
See UNSC Res. 757 (1992), 30 May
1992.
12
See Susan L. Woodward, Balkan
Tragedy: Chaos and Dissolution after the
Cold War (Washington DC: The
Brookings Institution, 1995); and Carol J.
Williams, ‘Defiant Serbia Moves To
Avert Gas Shortages’, Los Angeles Times,
2 June 1992, p. A4.
13
The National Bank of Yugoslavia had
an estimated $1.8–2.2bn in overseas
assets. Private assets held in different
offshore banking centres were believed
to total between $3.3bn and $5bn. See
Vojin Dimitrijevic and Jelena Pejic, ‘UN
Sanctions against Yugoslavia: Two Years
Later’, in Dimitris Bourantonis and
Jarrod Wiener (eds), The United Nations
in the New World Order: The World
Organization at Fifty (New York: St.
Martin’s Press, 1995), p. 146.
14
Sanction Assistance Missions (SAMs)
were set up in October 1992 in Hungary,
Romania and Bulgaria; in Macedonia in
November 1992; and in Croatia, Ukraine
and Albania in early 1993.
15
See UNSC Res. 820 (1993), 17 April
1993.
16
See David Owen, Balkan Odyssey (New
York: Harcourt Brace, 1995) p. 159.
17
On US policy see, for example, Bert
Wayne, The Reluctant Superpower: United
States’ Policy in Bosnia, 1991– 95 (New
York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997).
18
In response to persistent Bosnian Serb
attacks on the Muslim enclave of
Srebrenica, Western powers decided to
make Srebrenica nominally a safe area.
However, they failed to deploy sufficient
military forces to provide genuine
security.
Making Economic Sanctions Work 19
19
Owen believed that Milosevic had
been insufficiently rewarded when he
threw his support behind the Vance–
Owen plan. According to Owen, this
lack of international encouragement
made Milosevic renege on his pledge to
cut off the Bosnian Serbs in May 1993.
See Owen, Balkan Odyssey, pp. 297–98.
20
See UNSC Res. 942 (1994), 23
September 1994.
21
John Stremlau argues in Sharpening
International Sanctions: Toward a Stronger
Role for the United Nations (New York:
Carnegie Corporation of New York,
November 1996) that sanctions were
effective; Woodward (Balkan Tragedy)
believes they were not.
22
See UNSC Res. 841 (1993), 16 June
1993. Initial efforts, including a call for
sanctions by the Organisation of
American States (OAS) to restore
Aristide to power, failed.
23
Seventy-five per cent of Haitian
exports went to the US, and 60% of
imports came from there.
24
For details on the agreement, see
James Morell, The Governors Island Accord
on Haiti (Washington DC: Washington
Center for International Policy,
International Policy Report, September
1993).
25
The Haitian military had staged an
unfirendly reception for the USS Harlan
County, which transported the first
batch of UN peacekeepers. Banners
warned that the deployment of UN
troops would result in another Somalia,
where days earlier US soldiers had been
killed, prompting President Bill Clinton
to announce that all US troops would
withdraw from Somalia. The Haitian
military evidently hoped to scare off the
US, and managed to do so.
26
See UNSC Res. 873 (1993), 13 October
1993; and UNSC Res. 875 (1993), 16
October 1993.
27
See UNSC Res. 940 (1994), 31 July 1994.
28
See UNSC Res. 944 (1994), 29
September 1994.
20 Chantal de Jonge Oudraat
29
Haiti had the lowest life expectancy
(48 years), the highest infant-mortality
rate (124 per 1,000), and the highest
illiteracy rate (between 63% and 90%).
Some 70% of Haitian children suffered
from malnutrition, and 35% were
seriously malnourished.
30
Between 1992 and 1993, Haiti’s GDP
fell by almost 20%. By 1994, over 30,000
people had lost their jobs, and
unemployment was between 65% and
80%. Meanwhile, the production of food
crops declined, and food prices soared.
31
Some analysts have argued that
sanctions in Haiti were a failure because
they were not comprehensive and
because they were imposed gradually.
See, for example, Elizabeth Rogers,
‘Economic Sanctions and Internal
Conflict’, in Michael E. Brown (ed.), The
International Dimensions of Internal
Conflict (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press,
1996), p. 424. However, the track record
in Haiti was uneven because outside
powers – the US in particular – were not
clear about what they wanted to achieve.
32
Sanctions were imposed on Libya,
Sudan and the Taleban because of their
support for terrorist groups, and their
refusal to extradite alleged terrorists.
33
See UNSC Res. 864 (1993), 15
September 1993.
34
See UNSC Res. 1127 (1997), 28 August
1997; UNSC Res. 1130 (1997), 29
September 1997; and UNSC Res. 1135
(1997), 29 October 1997.
35
See UNSC Res. 1173 (1998), 12 June
1998; UNSC Res. 1149 (1998), 27 January
1998; UNSC Res. 1157 (1998), 20 March
1998; and UNSC Res. 1164 (1998), 29
April 1998.
36
See ‘Angola II, Deadly Diamonds:
UNITA’s New Armour Financed by a
Web of Deals from Luzamba to
Antwerp’, Africa Confidential, vol. 40, no.
8, 16 April 1999. See also Blaine Harden,
‘Africa’s Gems: Warfare’s Best Friend’,
New York Times, 6 April 2000. It has been
estimated that, in February 1999 alone,
UNITA made $32 million-worth of
diamond sales. See ‘Angola II, Deadly
Diamonds’.
37
See Report of the Panel of Experts on
Violations of Security Council Sanctions
Against UNITA, UN document S/2000/
203, 10 March 2000.
38
Ibid.
39
Ibid.
40
See James Bone, ‘UN Notebook: Has
Angola Sanctions Panel “Gone Awry”?’
UN Wire, 11 April 2000,
www.unfoundation.org. See also
‘Angola/UN Name and Shame’, Africa
Confidential, vol. 41, no.6, 17 March 2000,
p. 8.
41
See UNSC Res. 1132 (1997), 8 October
1997. The Security Council had imposed
a restricted sanction regime only after
prodding from the Economic
Community of West African States
(ECOWAS), which had imposed
comprehensive economic sanctions in
August 1997. The Council feared that
sanctions could easily create a
humanitarian disaster in Sierra Leone.
Shortly after the sanctions were
imposed, the UN dispatched an
assessment team to measure the
humanitarian effects of sanctions. See
Inter-Agency Assessment Mission to Sierra
Leone: Interim Report (New York: UN
Office for the Coordinator of
Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA),
February 1998).
42
See Douglas Farah, ‘Diamonds Are a
Rebel’s Best Friend: Mining of Gems
Helps Sierra Leone Militia Stall Peace
Process’, Washington Post, 17 April 2000,
p. A12.
43
See Harden, ‘Africa’s Gems’, 6 April
2000.
44
See UNSC Res. 1306 (2000), 5 July 2000.
45
See Joanna Spear, ‘Arms Limitations,
Confidence Building Measures, and
Internal Conflict’, in Brown (ed.), The
International Dimensions of Internal
Conflict, p. 393
46
Ibid., pp. 377–410.
47
The level of development of a country

can be measured in different ways.
Economic indicators include per-capita
income, growth rate and the size of the
manufacturing, services and agricultural
sectors. Social indicators include life
expectancy, infant mortality and access
to health services and potable water.
48
Lewis Coser has argued that, when
group cohesion is strong, external
pressure reinforces this cohesion and the
willingness to resist this pressure. When
group cohesion is weak, external
pressure leads to apathy and
disintegration, and hence a diminished
capacity to resist outside pressure. See
Lewis Coser, The Functions of Social
Conflict (New York and London: The
Free Press/MacMillan, 1964), pp. 87–94.
49
See, for example, Hufbauer, Schott and
Elliot, Economic Sanctions Reconsidered;
Kimberly Ann Elliot, ‘Factors Affecting
the Success of Sanctions’, in David
Cortright and George Lopez (eds),
Economic Sanctions: Panacea or
Peacebuilding in a Post-Cold War World?
(Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1995), pp.
51–60; Rogers, ‘Economic Sanctions and
Internal Conflicts’, p. 413; Preventing
Deadly Conflict: Final Report (New York:
The Carnegie Corporation of New York,
December 1997), p. 54; and US
Department of State, Inter-Agency Task
Force on Serbian Sanctions, ‘UN
Sanctions Against Belgrade: Lessons
Learned for Future Regimes’, in The
Report of the Copenhagen Round Table on
UN Sanctions: The Case of the Former
Yugoslavia, Copenhagen 24–25 June 1996
and Annexes (Brussels: Sanctions
Assistance Missions Communications
Centre (SAMCOMM), , European
Commission, 1996), p.327.
50
See, for example, Ivan Eland, ‘Think
Small’, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists,
November 1993, pp. 36–40; Ivan Eland,
‘Economic Sanctions as Tools of Foreign
Policy’, in Cortright and Lopez (eds),
Economic Sanctions, pp. 29–42; and James
McDermott, Ivan Eland and Bruce
Making Economic Sanctions Work 21
Kutnick, Economic Sanctions: Effectiveness
as Tools of Foreign Policy, GAO/NSIAD-
92-106 (Washington DC: US General
Accounting Office (GAO), February
1992). See also Cortright, Lopez et al., The
Sanctions Decade.
51
The importance of exit or termination
strategies has been recognised within the
UN, but they have not in practice been
adopted. See, for example, United
Nations Sanctions as a Toll of Peaceful
Settlement of Disputes: Non-paper
Submitted by Australia and the Netherlands,
A/50/322, 3 August 1995.
52
Many authors have argued that the
UN Security Council should adopt
standardised texts for its sanctions
resolutions. This would also facilitate
efforts to develop national legislation for
sanction regimes. See Cortright and
Lopez, The Sanctions Decade, p. 234.
53
Scharf and Dorosin have called for the
creation of a single comprehensive
Sanctions Committee, which would deal
with all UN sanctions regimes and be
composed of legal experts chosen by the
Council members for fixed periods. They
also propose that the Committee make
its decision by vote rather than by
consensus, and authorise oral and
written presentations for the purposes of
interpretation by states other than
Council members. See Michael P. Scharf
and Joshua L. Dorosin, ‘Interpreting UN
Sanctions: The Rulings and Role of the
Yugoslavia Sanctions Committee’,
Brooklyn Journal of International Law, vol.
19, no. 3, December 1993, p. 826. See also
Lloyd Dumas, ‘A Proposal for a New
United Nations Council on Economic
Sanctions’, in Cortright and Lopez (eds),
Economic Sanctions, pp. 187–99.
54
Only 12 countries have laws enabling
them to enforce financial sanctions. See
Cortright and Lopez, The Sanctions
Decade, p. 234.
55
These arrangements involved a variety
of international organisations: the UN,
the Organisation for Security and
22 Chantal de Jonge Oudraat
Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the
European Union (EU), NATO, the
Western European Union (WEU) and the
International Conference on the Former
Yugoslavia (ICFY). They covered
maritime traffic and land-border control
posts, as well as river traffic.
56
In April 2000, the UN Security Council
decided to set up, independently of the
UN Sanction Committee, a dedicated
five-strong group of experts to collect
information and investigate leads
concerning violations of the sanctions
regime imposed on UNITA. See UNSC
Res. 1295 (2000), 18 April 2000.
57
For example, in January 1993 five
Yugoslav tugboats carrying petroleum
products to the FRY threatened to blow
up their barges if they were not allowed
to proceed. Faced with the possibility of
a major ecological disaster, the
Romanian and Bulgarian authorities let
the convoys pass. The following month,
when the Romanian government
stopped a Yugoslav convoy of 19 barges,
the FRY brought navigation on the
Danube to a standstill and threatened to
blow up the levee at Parahovo. See US
General Accounting Office (USGAO),
Serbia-Montenegro: Implementation of UN
Economic Sanctions, GAO/NSIAD-93-174
(Washington DC: USGAO, April 1993),
p.15; and UN documents S/25182 and S/
25189, 27 January 1993; and S/25373, 5
March 1993.
58
See, for example, the Final Report of
the Commission of Inquiry on the
Rwandan Arms Embargo, S/1996/195,
14 March 1996, para. 77-79. See also the
Report of the Panel of Experts on Violations
of Security Council Sanctions Against
UNITA, UN document S/2000/203, 10
March 2000.
59
For details, see the Report of the UN
Secretary-General on the Question of Special
Economic Problems of States as a Result of
Sanctions Imposed Under Chapter VII of the
United Nations, S/26705 or A/48/573, 8
November 1993, paras 5–23.
60
Ibid., paras 24–25.
61
See Report of the UN Secretary-
General, An Agenda For Peace, S/24111 or
A/47/277, 17 June 1992, para 41.
62
See Position Paper of the UN Secretary-
General on the Occasion of the Fiftieth
Anniversary of the United Nations,
Supplement to An Agenda for Peace, S/
1995/1 or A/50/60, 3 January 1995,
paras 73–76.
63
See Report of the UN Secretary-General
on the Question of Special Economic
Problems, para 140.
64
See Report of the Special Committee on the
Charter of the UN on Implementation of the
Provisions of the Charter of the United
Nations Related to Assistance to Third
States Affected by the Application of
Sanctions under Chapter VII of the Charter,
A/50/361, 22 August 1995, para 7.
65
This argument is developed in
Supplement to an Agenda for Peace; and in
Implementation of the Provisions of the
Charter of the United Nations Related to
Assistance to Third States.
66
Cortright and Lopez suggest that
special donor conferences should be
convened to raise money when imposing
sanctions. The Sanctions Decade, p. 230.