United Nations Sanctions Management

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

This remarkable book scrutinizes the rationale and enforcement of the continuing United Nations sanctions in Iraq—a program widely criticized for imposing misery on an entire population in a fruitless attempt to humble a cynical tyrant. It is the first book-length study ever undertaken of the functioning of a Security Council sanctions committee. It analyzes in detail substantive UN sanctions law, the operation of mandatory Chapter VII sanctions, and their practical enforcement strategies. The author offers recommendations, both legislative and organizational, for improving the effectiveness of multilateral sanctions measures in the future. Providing a rare insider’s view of this aspect of international law and organization, and based largely on previously unpublished documents, United Nations Sanctions Management will be of great interest for the light it sheds on the background to the current UN impasse on Iraq. There are two statistical tables, four flowcharts, lists of committee members and meetings, and a select bibliography. Published under the auspices of the Procedural Aspects of International Law Institute (PAIL). For more information about PAIL go to pail-institute.org. Published under the Transnational Publishers imprint.

The reactivation of the Security Council at the beginning of the last decade has resulted, since the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq on August 2, l990, in increasing use of its powers under Chapter VII of the Charter and the adoption of measures against a number of state and non-state entities. The notion of a threat to the peace has now come to encompass violations of fundamental norms of international law such as human rights and humanitarian law, and the wide-ranging measures adopted have included such innovations as the establishment of the UN Compensation Commission or that of the two international criminal tribunals for Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. These measures have not only infringed on the legal rights of the targeted state (sometimes with irreversible effects where they have remained in force over a long period of time) and its population, but also on those of implementing states and of private rights within these states. The current debate over the legitimacy and long-term effects of economic sanctions on states and their populations makes it imperative to re-evaluate this instrument and the broader peace maintenance function of the Security Council in the light of current community concerns. Part One of this book addresses the theoretical issues by focussing on: 1) The place of sanctions in the international legal system; 2) the limits to the powers of the Security Council and the question of accountability; and 3) an assessment of the alternatives to collective economic sanctions. Part Two looks at the relationship between sanctions and humanitarian issues, examining the relationship between: 1) Sanctions and human rights law; 2) sanctions, humanitarian issues and mandates; and 3) sanctions and humanitarian law. Part Three focuses on implementation by states of Security Council sanctions resolutions by examining: 1) Sanctions and private rights; and 2) special problems for implementing states. Part Four addresses the future in reassessing the place and ethics of sanctions in an international legal system which is giving increased importance to the individual. This work is based on papers presented at a colloquium of the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva.

The United Nations Security Council has increasingly resorted to sanctions as part of its efforts to prevent and resolve conflict. In this 2007 book, Farrall traces the evolution of the Security Council's sanctions powers and charts the contours of the UN sanctions system. He also evaluates the extent to which the Security Council's increasing commitment to strengthening the rule of law extends to its sanctions practice. The book identifies shortcomings in respect of key rule of law principles and advances pragmatic policy-reform proposals designed to ensure that UN sanctions promote, strengthen and reinforce the rule of law. In its appendices United Nations Sanctions and the Rule of Law contains summaries of all 25 UN sanctions regimes established to date by the Security Council. It forms an invaluable source of reference for diplomats, policymakers, scholars and advocates.

This work is a comparative study of domestic implementation of Security Council mandatory sanctions taken under Article 41, Chapter VII of the UN Charter, including the establishment of the two international criminal tribunals, the ICTY and ICTR, and recent resolutions on the combating of the financing of terrorism. The book examines implementation in 16 select States in Europe, America, Asia, the Middle East and Africa, underlining also the particular problems arising from sanctions implementation by the European Union, by a permanently neutral and former non-Member State - Switzerland - and by States confronted with special economic problems within the meaning of Article 50 of the UN Charter. Three interrelated themes are addressed. The first, of a theoretical nature, concerns the question of whether implementation of Security Council resolutions, particularly where perceived to be in fulfilment of community objectives, poses problems which are in some way distinct from those raised by the implementation of other conventional international law obligations, thereby shedding a different light on the traditional relationship between international and municipal law. The second concerns the effectiveness of the decisions of the Security Council viewed from the perspective of the effective mise en oeuvre of these decisions in national law. The third theme concerns the legitimacy of Security Council resolutions as seen from the viewpoint of domestic legal systems, that is the extent to which Security Council decisions encroach on internationally or constitutionally protected individual rights and the potential role played by domestic courts in reviewing the decisions of the Security Council.The latter has assumed particular importance in the framework of the combating of the financing of terrorism. This work, which brings together the research results of 29 academics and experts, is the second publication within the framework of a project on Security Council sanctions carried out under the auspices of the Graduate Institute of International Studies. The first, which looked at a broad set of issues, was entitled "United Nations Sanctions and International Law" and was published by Kluwer Law International in 2001.

The United Nations Security Council has increasingly resorted to sanctions as part of its efforts to prevent and resolve conflict. In this 2007 book, Farrall traces the evolution of the Security Council's sanctions powers and charts the contours of the UN sanctions system. He also evaluates the extent to which the Security Council's increasing commitment to strengthening the rule of law extends to its sanctions practice. The book identifies shortcomings in respect of key rule of law principles and advances pragmatic policy-reform proposals designed to ensure that UN sanctions promote, strengthen and reinforce the rule of law. In its appendices United Nations Sanctions and the Rule of Law contains summaries of all 25 UN sanctions regimes established to date by the Security Council. It forms an invaluable source of reference for diplomats, policymakers, scholars and advocates.