Third Party Involvement

Economic Sanctions
Weapons Embargoes
NATO Involvement
UN Peace Enforcement
Election Observers

Economic Sanctions

Introduction

Governments and multinational bodies impose economic sanctions to try to alter the strategic decisions of state and non-state actors that threaten their interests or violate international norms of behavior. Critics say sanctions are often poorly conceived and rarely successful in changing a target’s conduct, while supporters contend they have become more effective in recent years and remain an essential foreign policy tool. Sanctions have become the defining feature of the Western response to several geopolitical challenges, including Iran’s nuclear program and Russia’s intervention in Ukraine.

What are economic sanctions?

Economic sanctions are defined as the withdrawal of customary trade and financial relations for foreign and security policy purposes. They may be comprehensive, prohibiting commercial activity with regard to an entire country, like the longstanding U.S. embargo of Cuba, or they may be targeted, blocking transactions of and with particular businesses, groups, or individuals.

Since 9/11, there has been a pronounced shift toward targeted or so-called “smart” sanctions, which aim to minimize the suffering of innocent civilians. Sanctions take a variety of forms, including travel bans, asset freezes, arms embargoes, capital restraints, foreign aid reductions, and trade restrictions. (General export controls, which are not reactive by nature, are often excluded from sanctions discussions.)

When are sanctions used?

National governments and international bodies like the United Nations and European Union have imposed economic sanctions to coerce, deter, punish, or shame entities that endanger their interests or violate international norms of behaviour. They have been used to advance a range of foreign policy goals, including counterterrorism, counternarcotics, nonproliferation, democracy and human rights promotion, conflict resolution, and, most recently, cybersecurity.

What are economic sanctions?

When are sanctions used?

National governments and international bodies like the United Nations and European Union have imposed economic sanctions to coerce, deter, punish, or shame entities that endanger their interests or violate international norms of behaviour. They have been used to advance a range of foreign policy goals, including counterterrorism, counternarcotics, nonproliferation, democracy and human rights promotion, conflict resolution, and, most recently, cybersecurity.

Sanctions, while a form of intervention, are generally viewed as an alternative to military force—a lower-cost, lower-risk, middle course of action between diplomacy and war. Policymakers may consider sanctions a response to foreign crises in which the national interest is less than vital or where military action is not feasible. Leaders can on occasion issue sanctions rapidly to buy additional time to evaluate and prepare more punitive action. For example, the UN Security Council imposed comprehensive sanctions (PDF) against Iraq just four days after Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in August 1990. The Council did not authorize the use of military force until months later.

What is the sanctions process at the United Nations?

As the UN’s principal crisis-management body, the Security Council may respond to global threats by cutting economic ties with state and non-state groups. Sanctions resolutions must pass the fifteen-member Council by a majority vote and without a veto from any of the five permanent members: the United States, China, France, Russia, the UK. The most common types of UN sanctions, which are binding on all member states, are asset freezes, travel bans, and arms embargoes.

UN sanctions regimes, including most of the sixteen in place in early 2015 (the most in history), are typically managed by a special committee and a monitoring group. The global police agency Interpol assists some sanctions committees, particularly those concerning al-Qaeda and the Taliban, but the UN has no independent means of enforcement and relies greatly on member states, many of which have limited resources and little political incentive. Anecdotal evidence suggests that enforcement is often weak.

Prior to 1990, the Council imposed sanctions against just two states: Southern Rhodesia (1966) and South Africa (1977). However, since the end of the Cold War, the body has used sanctions more than twenty times, most often targeting parties to an intrastate conflict, as in Somalia, Liberia, and Yugoslavia in the 1990s. But despite this cooperation, sanctions are often divisive, reflecting the competing interests of world powers. For instance, since 2011, Russia and China have vetoed all four Security Council resolutions concerning the conflict in Syria, some of which could have led to sanctions against President Bashar Al-Assad’s regime.

What is the sanctions process in the European Union?

The European Union imposes sanctions (known more commonly in the twenty-eight-member bloc as restrictive measures) as part of its Common Foreign and Security Policy. Because the EU lacks a joint military force, many European leaders consider sanctions the bloc’s most powerful foreign policy tool. Sanctions policies must receive unanimous consent from member states in the Council of the European Union, the body that represents EU leaders.

Since its inception in 1992, the EU has levied sanctions more than thirty times (in addition to those mandated by the UN). Analysts say the comprehensive sanctions imposed on Iran in 2012 marked a turning point for the bloc, which had previously sought to limit sanctions to specific individuals or companies. Individual states, of course, may impose harsher, autonomous sanctions within their national jurisdiction.

What is the sanctions process in the United States?

The United States uses economic and financial sanctions more than any other country. Sanctions policy may originate in either the executive or legislative branches. Presidents typically launch the process by issuing an executive order (EO) that declares a national emergency in response to an “unusual and extraordinary” foreign threat, such as “the proliferation of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons” (EO 12938) or “the actions and policies of the Government of the Russian Federation with respect to Ukraine” (EO 13661). This affords the president special powers (pursuant to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act) to regulate commerce with regard to that threat for a period of one year, unless extended by him/her or terminated by a joint resolution of Congress. (Executive orders may also modify sanctions.)

Notably, most of the more than fifty states of emergency declared since Congress placed limits on their duration in 1976 remain in effect today, including the first, ordered by President Jimmy Carter in 1979 with respect to Iran. (This was last extended by President Barack Obama in 2014.)

Congress, for its part, may pass legislation imposing new sanctions or modifying existing ones, which it has done in many cases. In instances where there are multiple legal authorities, as with Cuba and Iran and others, congressional and executive action may be required to alter or lift the restrictions. For example, there are ten statutes and more than twenty-five executive orders associated with the Iran sanctions program.

For the most part, the twenty-six existing U.S. sanctions programs are administered by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), while other departments, including State, Commerce, Homeland Security, and Justice may also play an integral role. For instance, the secretary of state can designate a group a Foreign Terrorist Organization, or label a country a State Sponsor of Terrorism, both of which have sanctions implications. (Travel bans are handled by the State Department as well.) State and local authorities, particularly in New York, may also contribute to enforcement efforts.

In early 2015, the United States had comprehensive sanctions regimes on Burma (Myanmar), Cuba, Iran, Sudan, and Syria, as well as more than a dozen other programs targeting individuals and entities pertaining to certain political crises or suspected of certain types of criminal behaviour, such as narcotics trafficking. OFAC routinely adds (or deletes) entries on its blacklist of more than six thousand individuals, businesses, and groups (known as Specially Designated Nationals.) The assets of those listed are blocked, and U.S. persons, including U.S. businesses and their foreign branches, are forbidden from transacting with them.

Do sanctions work?

Many scholars and practitioners say that sanctions, particularly targeted sanctions, can be at least partly successful and should remain in the tool kits of foreign policymakers. Evaluations of sanctions should consider the following:

The dynamics of each historical case vary immensely. Sanctions effective in one setting may fail in another, depending on innumerable factors. Sanctions programs with relatively limited objectives are generally more likely to succeed than those with major political ambitions. Furthermore, sanctions may achieve their desired economic effect, but they may fail to change behaviour. UN sanctions on Afghanistan in 2000 and 2001 exacted a heavy toll but failed to move the Taliban regime to surrender Osama bin Laden.

Sanctions often evolve over time. A classic illustration of this is the U.S. regime on Iran. Except for a brief period in the 1980s, Washington has had sanctions on Tehran since U.S. hostages were taken in 1979. However, the scope of these measures and the logic behind them have changed dramatically.

Only correlations, not causal relationships, can be determined. For example, many believe UN sanctions imposed on Liberia in 2003 helped bring about the collapse of the Charles Taylor regime, but any number of domestic and international factors could have played more decisive roles.

The comparative utility of sanctions is what matters and not simply whether they achieve their objective. U.S.-EU sanctions against Russia may not stem the crisis in Ukraine, but other courses of action, including inaction, may have fared worse (and cost more). In some cases, sanctions may simply be intended as an expression of opprobrium.

Meanwhile, experts cite several best practices in developing sanctions policy:

Develop a well-rounded approach. An effective strategy often links punitive measures, like sanctions and the threat of military action, with positive inducements, like financial aid. Some point to the Libya strategy adopted by the United States and its allies in the late 1990s and early 2000s that balanced diplomatic carrots and sticks to persuade then-Libyan President Muammar al-Qaddafi to forswear WMDs and stop supporting terrorism.

Set attainable goals. Sanctions aimed at regime change or that offer the target little recourse except what it believes would be political suicide are likely to fail. Many cite the U.S. embargo on the Castro regime as a cautionary tale.

Build multilateral support. Of course, the more governments that sign on to (and enforce) sanctions the better, especially in cases where the target is economically diversified. Sanctions against South Africa’s apartheid regime in the 1980s, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in the 1990s, or on Iran and Russia today would not be nearly as powerful without multilateral support.

Be credible and flexible. The target must believe that sanctions will be increased or reduced based on its behavior. In 2012, the Obama administration responded to major political reforms in Myanmar by easing some financial and investment restrictions. However, White House officials stressed that other sanctions remain in place to keep Myanmar from backsliding.

See http://www.cfr.org/sanctions/economic-sanctions/p36259 for further details

Tasks Using evidence from the above extract, answer the following questions.

1. In summary, what are sanctions and how do they work.

2. What are the limitations on the use of sanctions?

3. Under what circumstances are sanctions effective?

4. Using a realist perspective state why sanctions are an ineffective mechanism

5. Using a liberal perspective state why sanctions are an effective mechanism.

Arms Embargos

Arms embargoes have been around since time immemorial and have three general purposes:

to signal disapproval of behaviour by a certain actor,

to maintain neutral standing in an ongoing conflict, or

in the hopes of limiting the resources an actor has to inflict violence on others.

Indeed, every state attempts to regulate the ability for potential adversaries to acquire certain material that may be used against them. However, embargoes have increasingly become more of a symbolic gesture toward undesired actions. Although the effectiveness of embargoes is often brought into question, they are often used because the imposition of such sanctions allows states to voice opposition to certain behaviour in a manner that stops short of violence.

The Cold War posed significant difficulties toward effective embargoes because both Moscow and Washington sought to undermine international objectives of the other. However, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, arms embargoes have become an increasingly prevalent means of foreign policy. The United States has used arms embargoes to disadvantage potential adversaries such as Iran, Iraq and North Korea. Yet, unilateral arms embargoes often have little material effect. For instance, North Korea has been able to acquire significant stockpiles of military equipment and to develop a formidable indigenous production capability despite a stiff U.S. embargo.

To be sure, unilateral embargoes are unlikely to pose significant obstacles to weapons procurement by a determined target-state. As long as a dealer exists, the buyers are able to circumvent embargoes. Many times, the arms dealers will move through covert channels to sell their product, as the presence of an embargo makes armaments an increasingly scarce and thus more lucrative commodity.[1] However, such unilateral measures also signal disapproval of an actor's behaviour in order to help galvanize international pressure toward countering such unwanted policies, and to encourage other countries to abide by such limits on arms transfers.

The emergence of human rights catastrophes that accompanied a resurgence of ethnic conflicts after the Cold War led to a greater international consensus of the need to impose universal arms embargoes on certain actors. For instance, international military cutoffs---of both hardware and advice---have been imposed on Afghanistan, Iraq, Haiti, Liberia, Libya, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Rwanda, and Yugoslavia, in the last dozen years. Most of these have been sanctioned through the United Nations. However, it is also questionable how effective these multilateral measures are. For instance, South Africa managed to acquire significant military capabilities during the UN arms embargo that aimed to curtail its policies of apartheid. Nonetheless, such measures make it much more difficult for countries to obtain weapons and able to more effectively impose their will. This signals international opposition to certain behaviour that can also spread into other areas of diplomacy and international pressure.

Until its involvement in World War II, the United States often placed automatic and unilateral military embargoes on any country involved in a conflict, regardless of who initiated hostilities. Rather than signaling its discontent with such behaviour, or to curb an actor's destructive capabilities, this was simply an attempt to maintain neutrality and keep the United States out of wars overseas. However, some argue that placing embargoes on belligerents inherently takes sides and cannot be considered neutral because it locks in the positions of those who are better armed at the beginning of a conflict. Indeed, the arms embargo placed on the former Yugoslavia during the hostilities of the early 1990s arguably secured military superiority of Serbian forces with regard to the opposing two forces.

Arms embargoes have become an increasingly prevalent tool of diplomacy that allows states to voice disapproval of certain behaviour short of war, but with real material consequences that often places significant pressure on target-states. While the ability for embargoes to actually stymie weapons acquisitions by a determined state is questionable, they can help galvanize international pressure to not only help impose the embargoes but to also help secure support for overall opposition to certain policies.

Humanitarian Intervention

Read the below chapter on humanitarian intervention. Complete the questions at the end and summarise the arguments for and against.

Chapter 31.pdf

Third Party Involvement