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 oftenvide Iraq, Yugoslavia and Sierra
Leone as examplesthey 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
servicesclean water provision, sanitation systems, the
production of domestic and industrial energy and the liketend
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 dealersand some governmentswittingly
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 vitalunless a situation like
that of apartheid is involvedthat 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 creationpending the establishing of the International
Criminal Courtby 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 thisand 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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