Select Committee on International Development Appendices to the Minutes of Evidence


APPENDIX 9

Memorandum submitted by the United Nations Association of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

SANCTIONS: ARE THEY ACCEPTABLE?

INTRODUCTION

  Article 41 (Chapter VII) of the United Nations Charter states

    "The Security Council may decide what measures not involving the use of armed force are to be employed to give effect to its decisions, and it may call upon the Members of the United Nations to apply such measures. These may include complete or partial interruption of economic relations and of rail, sea, air, postal, telegraphic, radio, and other means of communication, and the severance of diplomatic relations".

  By adopting this Article in San Francisco in 1945, the member states of the United Nations (51 at that time; now 185) legitimized the use of sanctions within international law as one method (among several) or persuading or coercing recalcitrant member states to cease from perpetrating a breach of international peace and security.

  Although Article 41 does not produce an exhaustive list of possible measures, it does make clear that both political and economic sanctions may be imposed. Interestingly, military sanctions are not mentioned.

THE USE OF SANCTIONS: SOUTH AFRICA

  The most long-term and widespread use of sanctions, not wholly supported by the member states, was against South Africa during the apartheid era. The UN Security Council imposed (mandatory) military sanctions and sought to implement a programme of comprehensive sanctions across the board: economic, social, sporting, financial, etc. It did so in the knowledge that the great majority of the oppressed population of South Africa continually called for this sanctions policy to be tightened, on the grounds that any suffering which it caused was worth enduring if it helped to hasten the collapse of apartheid.

  Although many Governments, companies and others ducked the full implementation of this policy, nevertheless it is widely held that it helped to erode the economic basis of apartheid and thus contributed towards achieving its ultimate demise.

 FACTORS TO CONSIDER

  In many ways, South Africa was an unique case. In no other use of sanctions has it been anticipated that they would need essentially to be long-term; and experience has shown that their effectiveness tends to decline over a period of time.

  It is, in our view, important for the Security Council to accept that each crisis in which the use of sanctions is being considered is essentially unique; no overall "this is the way to do it" in terms of the imposition of sanctions is sensible.

  Nevertheless, there are certain criteria which, we believe, need to be evaluated before any decision is made to impose sanctions. They include

  (1)  against whom the sanctions are to be targeted. Very often—vide Iraq, Yugoslavia and Sierra Leone as examples—they are supposed to hurt the government of an offending member state in order to seek to bring them back from unacceptable behaviour. It is invariably hoped that sanctions will act swiftly to achieve their aim; but this rarely proves to be the case. As a result, they tend to drag on, with (usually) a number of similar results:

    (1)  the ordinary civilian population, although not the intended target, gets hit the hardest;

    (2)  the elite of the offending regime (the intended target) is better able to shield itself from the effects of the sanctions through major corruption, being leaders in black market activities etc. And the military is usually a beneficiary in that it needs to be "bought off" in order to retain its loyalty (however unenthusiastic that may be in reality);

    (3)  if certain sanctions are imposed, public services—clean water provision, sanitation systems, the production of domestic and industrial energy and the like—tend to decline. The ordinary citizens, not the elite, suffer most from this situation;

    (4)  if a ban on arms sales to the offending government is imposed, private dealers—and some governments—wittingly and speedily defy the ban. The sophisticated weapons still possessed by Jonas Savimbi's UNITA group in Angola is stark evidence of UN sanctions being flouted. The number of light weapons in the east of what was then Zaire during this decade is another. It was reported that Kalashnikov rifles were so plentiful that they were selling at $1 each!.

  (2)  the length of time for which the sanctions are to be imposed. Very often sanctions are imposed for a limited period (6 months or so). While this is sensible, nevertheless it takes time to structure the surveillance of member states' compliance. When the Security Council reviews any given situation, in order to decide whether to reimpose the sanctions for a further period or not, it does not always appear to give adequate consideration to the range of sanctions, the level of effectiveness achieved and whether the target of the sanctions is suffering their effects the most. The case of Iraq is very evident in this regard. There is little evidence that Saddam Hussein and those immediately around him are suffering from the sanctions which have been imposed. Rather it is the civilian population; but the Security Council has never moved effectively towards limiting its sanctions to those which specifically target the re«gime.

  (3)  What specific sanctions will hit the offenders the hardest. It is vital—unless a situation like that of apartheid is involved—that the measures to be taken are carefully tailored to affect the actual perpetrators of the unacceptable action against which the Security Council has decided to move. We would like to see much more careful targeting than has been the case on a number of occasions in the past. Relevant measures could include:

    (a)  reducing or, in extremis, withdrawing diplomatic ties with the offending state;

    (b)  imposing a ban on all foreign travel for the political, civil service or military members of the government unless prior authorisation is given by the Security Council;

    (c)  freezing all the known foreign assets of the offending leadership and their families;

    (d)  cancelling all overseas training and other opportunities for members of the offending government and their families;

    (e)  imposing a total arms embargo;

    (f)  imposing, where relevant, no-fly zones;

    (g)  prohibiting all external investment in the country unless it is authorised by the Security Council;

    (h)  in cases of flagrant human rights abuse, the creation—pending the establishing of the International Criminal Court—by the Security Council of a Special Criminal Tribunal to investigate a situation. People like Jonas Savimbi (Angola), Saddam Hussein (Iraq) and Slobodan Milosevic (Yugoslavia) are all prime examples of people whose track record of alleged human rights abuse should be fully investigated, with a view, if a case against them is established, to their being charged with war crimes and/or crimes against humanity and to a warrant being issued for their arrest.

 KNOCK-ON EFFECTS (a)   civilians

  Whatever sanctions are imposed and however hard the Security Council seeks to ensure that they are specifically targeted, it is inevitable that they will, to some degree at least, adversely affect the broader population. On some occasions city dwellers may be affected worse than rural; and, rather less often in our experience, the reverse may be true. The Security Council should, therefore, always take the necessary steps to structure adequate, properly resourced and fully monitored measures to protect innocent victims of its sanctions. UN Agencies and international and local NGOs can prove effectve delivery partners. In theory, this already happens: but the reality is that the Council and the member states of the United Nations are very capable of tiring of a crisis and of losing the will adequately to continue supporting those unintended victims as fully as they should. Iraq is one such example. The civilian population has not been adequately supported throughout the eight years during which the post-Gulf war sanctions have been in operation.

  The Security Council also needs to consider in each situation how to deal with maverick states which wittingly defy any sanctions regime.

(b)   neighbouring and other affected states

  No region of the world has individual countries which are totally isolated from their neighbour. Even Albania, at the highlight of its isolationism, and Cambodia during the notorious Khymer Rouge years (1975-79) were unable to build a totally impenetrable wall around themselves.

  Inevitably, neighbours and/or others who enjoy close strategic, commercial or other ties with an offending country, will suffer from the effective imposition of sanctions. When, in the wake of the invasion of Kuwait in August, 1990, the Security Council first imposed sanctions against the Government of Iraq, Jordan was a prime victim of the consequences, with some 80 per cent of its trade being with Iraq. When sanctions were imposed against the Government of Yugoslavia, such neighbours as Bulgaria were hit; and, in this case, the problems of shipping goods up and down the Danube, transiting Yugoslavia without being pilfered while in Yugoslav waters, was a major concern.

  Never in our experience, has the Security Council adequately organized ongoing compensation for those countries whose economies are hardest hit as a result of sanctions being imposed against an offender. Not surprisingly, the affected country is always tempted to break the sanctions and/or to tolerate entrepreneurs who do so. Much more needs to be done to ensure that this does not happen as a result of inadequate compensatory measures being agreed.

 (c)   sanctions committees

  When the Security Council (or other competent organs like Chapter VIII Regional Organisations) establish sanctions oversight committees, they should be instructed to work speedily to make the necessary decisions on the delivery of allowable supplies. They tend to be very slow and cumbersome (and, often, under-staffed), with recipient groups suffering as a result. The UN's current modus operandi in this area needs a thorough overhaul.

CONCLUSION

  We in UNA believe that properly targeted sanctions, if adequately implemented against those who should be specifically affected by them, have a key role to play in seeking to repair breaches of international peace and security. They must, however, be accompanied by adequate structures to protect the civilian population of a targeted country and by full and ongoing resourcing of programmes to action this—and to assist badly affected neighbours and others.

  Sanctions should only ever be imposed for a limited period, even if they need to be extended. Full and proper reviews should be undertaken regularly and the type of sanctions being used should change if a particular situation demands this.

  Sanctions oversight committees need to operate more expeditiously and the adequate monitoring on the ground of supplies delivered should be assured. This is particularly important when goods which have the potential for proper and improper use (eg syringes) are involved. It is no answer to put such goods on proscribed lists because no adequate monitoring system has been established or (as is more often the case) resourced.

  Effective sanctions policies require considerable political will. Too many UN member states often display a sad lack of determination to ensure that they succeed. Civil society and parliamentarians both have a key role to play in mobilising that political commitment.

Malcolm Harper

Director, United Nations Association of Great Britain and Northern Ireland


 
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