Smart Sanctions

Smart Sanctions explores the emerging concept of targeted sanctions and provides a comprehensive framework for new sanctions strategies for the 21st century. It includes essays by experts and analysts from the United Nations community, the European Union, the United States Government, and the academic community. Visit our website for sample chapters!

Systematically analyzes the impacts and the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions over the past quarter century.

Peter van Bergeijk brings together 40 leading experts from all continents to analyze state-of-the-art data covering the sharp increase in (smart) sanctions in the last decade. Original chapters provide detailed analyses on the determinants of sanction success and failure, complemented with research on the impact of sanctions.

In 2004 the United Nations Security Council initiated a “Working Group on General Issues of Sanctions” in order to increase the Council’s effectiveness in terms of sanctions implementation. With this reform, the Council reacted to the harsh criticism from the UN against the conventional sanctions practice. It was the Security Council’s latest endeavor to make ratified sanctions more punitive, coercive, and thus effective as far as causing compliance within its judicial framework is concerned. Summarized under the term “smart sanctions”, the Security Council tries to be more accurate in addressing sanctions thereby seeking not only to increase political effectiveness, but also to reduce unintended humanitarian suffering. While conventional sanctions are comprehensive and comprised of a variety of measures, such as trade boycotts and embargoes against the entire country, smart or targeted sanctions (as they are also termed) are selective, targeting only at certain areas or individuals. Consequently, sanctions are the practical expression of the Council’s sovereignty. The Council “lives and breathes” through the ratification of sanctions, so their corroboration and proper enforcement reflect the organization’s vitality. In short, if sanctions fail, the Council fails. So far scholars have accentuated technical questions in their research, such as how to engage in a successful bargaining process and how to imply isolation. They further focused on examining the compliance rate of targeted states. What has been slightly ignored is a potentially poor commitment by states to enforce sanctions in the first place. Quite possibly, the Security Council lacks ratification (what I term input legitimacy) and enforcement (what I term output legitimacy) of smart sanctions. Consequently, the “effectiveness” of smart sanctions does not necessarily have to be linked to the compliance rate of the targeted state. Instead, it might be connected to the commitment shown by the enforcing member states: the level of legitimacy granted to the Council and its tools. Two questions can be raised: How do member states contribute to the ratification and enforcement of smart sanctions? Has the use of smart sanctions increased the effectiveness of the UNSC as a sanctioning body? The concept of input/output legitimacy serves as a model for analyzing the member states’ commitment and will to impose smart sanctions, thus developing an alternative understanding of the term “effectiveness”. As the cases of Iran and North-Korea reveal, the ratification and enforcement of smart sanctions suffer legitimacy. This has ramifications both theoretically and empirically as it makes the concept of legitimacy a valuable tool for policy makers and reformists while simultaneously exposing substantial weaknesses of the new sanction practice.

In Corruption and Targeted Sanctions, Anton Moiseienko analyses the blacklisting of foreigners suspected of corruption and the prohibition of their entry into the sanctioning state from an international law perspective. The implications of such actions have gained prominence with the increased adoption of the so-called Magnitsky legislation internationally.

Cortright and Lopez (both of the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, U. of Notre Dame) follow up on their earlier work The Sanctions Decade by examining some of the UN changes in sanctions design since 1999 and suggesting that still further changes need to be carried out. Noting that it has now become evident that the full-scale strangulation of a national economy fails to produce political compliance. Recent sanctions against the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Taylor government in Liberia are seen as a laudable refinement, but a move from seeing sanctions a solely a punishment towards seeing them as also a form of persuasion is recommended. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

This book presents insightful perspectives on the invocation, implementation and application of UN-approved financial sanctions and related issues. With contributions from academics, diplomats and UN panel experts, Yoshimura offers an analysis of how the UN financial sanctions have evolved, the different roles of various major international actors in agreeing and deploying them, and their success in achieving desired outcomes. It also sheds light on a vital role of Japan in the formulation and deployment of financial sanctions, as the third largest economy in the world with very limited armed forces and a pacifist constitution. Offering valuable consideration into one of the key implements of international law, this is an essential guide for scholars and practitioners in Diplomacy and International Relations.

Sanktionen sind das starkste nicht-militarische Zwangsinstrument, das den Vereinten Nationen zur Verfugung steht, um internationales Recht, Frieden und Sicherheit zu schaffen. In den 90er Jahren wurden mehr als ein Dutzend Sanktionen verhangt, allerdings mit unerwunschten Folgen fur die Bevolkerung - vor allem im Fall des Irak - einerseits und mangelhafter Umsetzung - insbesondere der Waffenembargos - andererseits. Im Auftrag des Auswartigen Amtes und in Zusammenarbeit mit dem Sekretariat der VN hat das Internationale Konversionszentrum Bonn (BICC) zwei groaere Tagungen und eine Reihe von Arbeitsgruppensitzungen durchgefuhrt, um insbesondere Vorschlage zur Verbesserung von Waffenembargos und Reisebeschrankunken zu sammeln und weiterzuentwickeln. Der Band dokumentiert diesen Bonn-Berlin-Prozess'. Er enthalt die Beitrage zahlreicher internationaler Experten aus Forschungsinstituten, von Regierungen und den Vereinten Nationen zu den Tagungen sowie Zusammenfassungen der Diskussionen.Die Relevanz des Themas und die Breite der Autorenschaft machen den Band zu einem zentralen Werk in der Debatte um die Reform von Sanktionen und einem wichtigen Beitrag in der Diskussion der Rolle der Vereinten Nationen in der internationalen Politik.