Examination of Witnesses (Questions 89
- 99)
TUESDAY 11 JULY 2006
MR ALEX
SINGLETON
Q89 Chairman:
Good afternoon and welcome to our Select Committee. It is kind
of you to come and answer some of our questions and to give us
the benefit of your wisdom. I am very happy to get on with the
questions. Is there anything you want to say at the beginning?
Mr Singleton: No. I am happy for you to fire
away.
Q90 Chairman:
If I can start with a question on whether you think the UK policy
on sanctions generally is clear and coherent. Is there the appropriate
degree of policy co-ordination with the EU and the US? Are there
any changes that could be made to make our policy more effective?
And if you can give us any examples to back up what you are saying,
so much the better.
Mr Singleton: I think the British approach,
the UK approach, to sanctions does seem to be coherent, but I
think there is a more fundamental issue and it is whether sanctions
in general have been effective over the last century, or whether
actually they have failed to achieve what they have tried to do.
In fact, between 1914 and 1990, economic sanctions were imposed
116 times by the world as a whole, by individual countries. In
66 per cent of those cases, they totally failed to achieve their
stated objectives and of those that remained outside that 66 per
cent, the sanctions were only partly successful in most of the
rest. Since 1973, the success ratio for economic sanctions, in
fact, has dropped even further; it has fallen to 24 per cent of
all cases. I think the most remarkable case of sanctions is, of
course, the 1962 case of sanctions against Cuba; 43 years later,
Fidel Castro is still in power, freedom of expression and association
is still restricted. But the result is that Castro gets to blame
the economic disaster of his rule on the Americans. American sanctions
indeed have reduced investment in Cuba, hindering living standards,
but of course it must be borne in mind, that actually Cuba has
trading relationships with the rest of the world. It seems to
me that those sanctions that the US has imposed, in fact, are
rather weak. Even when you look at multilateral UN sanctions,
from the UN level, they do not fare significantly better. In fact,
sanctions, for example, against Iraq were widely said to have
caused hundreds of thousands of deaths. Were they worth it? Well,
I think, when you look at the effects of sanctions, they did not
actually bring down Saddam Hussein, they did not get his co-operation
with UN weapons inspectors, they did not, in fact, cause Saddam
Hussein personally any suffering. In effect, they were sanctions
on ordinary people. I would say, when you look at sanctions policy,
you can run a very effective sanctions policy on one level, but
actually unless it actually achieves anything there is no point
in doing it. In fact, you have got to use sanctions in very limited
cases, for example, when you are actually at war with someone,
in which case you are squeezing that country. But if you are not
going to combine it with other tools, like going to war, I do
not think they are going to be very successful.
Chairman: That is certainly a clear start
anyway. There are a lot of supplementaries that arise but I think
probably it is easier if we just take the questioning around and
then see what comes out of it.
Q91 Lord Sheldon:
How do we estimate the success of economic sanctions? What is
the basis of success? Should we have a stated objective and say,
if you meet that objective you are successful and there is nothing
more to it than that? Or are there some other aspects which we
need to consider?
Mr Singleton: I think you do have to state the
objective. For example, in the case of Rhodesia, the sanctions
were imposed in order to get rid of the Smith rule, I presume.
In fact, of course, the sanctions lasted for a long period of
time, from 1965 to 1979. You cannot go back and say, have the
sanctions worked or not, if you do not set a coherent aim, a coherent
objective. So, yes, there does need to be an objective.
Q92 Lord Sheldon:
Are there no other factors to consider, besides the objective
that you have in mind, to see how the economy may be going?
Mr Singleton: Of course, if you impose sanctions,
you are going to get some level of economic contraction. I think
you made a fair point. In sanctions against the Soviet Union after
their invasion of Afghanistan, Ronald Reagan eventually ended
the sanctions because he felt that the contraction of their economy
was too little. In fact, the sanctions on grain, which America
imposed, led to only a one per cent decrease in the amount of
grain the Soviet Union imported, and the reason was that other
countries bought the American grain and they used that grain themselves,
but the grain that they were buying previously they then sold
off to the Soviets. Yes, there is some relevance to having other
measures.
Q93 Lord Vallance of Tummel:
In your answer to the first question, you mentioned the proportions
of successes and failures, but what does the evidence say about
the circumstances under which success or failure may come about,
and would the answer to that question differ according to whether
the sanctions were general sanctions or targeted?
Mr Singleton: I think that sanctions which are
part of a whole range of policies are more successful. I think
the idea that you can just impose sanctions and expect everything
to work out your way is a mistake; it has to be part of a co-ordinated
policy. You have 10 things that you do and one thing is sanctions.
That puts some pressure, but by itself, I think, it does not tend
to make a difference.
Q94 Lord Vallance of Tummel:
The second half of the question: is there a difference between
general sanctions and targeted sanctions within that context?
Mr Singleton: I do not know the answer to that.
I cannot say something with confidence on that.
Q95 Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove Bay:
I think you have covered some of this point already, from your
commendably clear, opening statement, so I will miss the first
bit of it. But outside wartime should the Government ever ban
trade with countries controlled by oppressive regimes, or should
decisions whether or not to trade with such countries be left
to individuals? Secondly, to what extent should Government policy
on the limitation of trade with an oppressive regime be influenced
by the views of movements opposed to that regime, whether inside
or outside the country?
Mr Singleton: My preference would be that you
should allow trade with oppressive regimes. The reason is that,
on the whole, as oppressive countries become more connected with
the global economy, as they get richer, as they build up a middle
class, actually they liberate socially and politically. I am very
much an optimist on China, for example. I think that the worst
thing we could do was to impose sanctions against them. I think
it would have been a bad thing had we stopped them being able
to bid for the Olympics, for example. The fact that there are
tens of thousands of Chinese students at British universities,
engaging with the British way of life, I think is a positive measure.
I think it is positive that we are creating jobs in China by buying
products from China, and over time a middle class will emerge
in China which will push and argue for greater freedoms. I think
the tragedy of many well-meaning campaigns, such as people who
are concerned about Burma and arguing for no trade with Burma,
is that actually that might well make matters worse, by stopping
those interconnections, by putting people out of jobs. South Africa
is an example of where sanctions have fared rather better than
most examples, but even then there are examples of terrible hardship
that have been caused by withdrawal of businesses and trade in
South Africa. A company like Johnson & Johnson, for example,
stayed in, and their argument was, "Well, okay, there might
be discrimination generally in South Africa, but when people come
onto our campus, when they come and work at our company, for the
only time in their life, when they are at work, they get treated
equally; we don't discriminate with our workers, we encourage
toleration and, at the end of the day, they have well-paid jobs
and they're able to make a better life for themselves." They
asked themselves, "Morally, should we pull out?" and
they made the decision, and I think this was the right decision
for them, that they were going to stay in.
Q96 Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove Bay:
It seems to me, and I am relatively new to all this, it is very
important whether realistically those sanctions and the campaign
that is going on have any chance of changing the government. I
think probably I would disagree with you on South Africa, because
that was an example where it did change the government, and I
think then some people were not playing along. What has worried
me so far, in the evidence we have heard, particularly from the
Foreign Office here, is you have sanctions and, even if they have
no visible effect, somehow they are a success because you have
made a statement. That seems to be an absolute argument. I wonder
what you think about that?
Mr Singleton: I think often these things are
statements. Also, I think, you have got to set a timeframe, when
you impose sanctions, you have to say "For how many years
are we going to do this?" After ten, 15 or 20 years, if you
have still got the sanctions, it seems to me that probably it
is the wrong approach.
Q97 Lord Kingsdown:
Are there any UK sanctions in place currently which you think
should be lifted? For instance, what about our ban on the import
of diamonds and timber products from Liberia? Conversely, do you
think there are any cases in which the UK Government has not imposed
sanctions but it should?
Mr Singleton: I think that is a very tricky
question. I would not really like to express an opinion on those
cases. I think you have got to look and ask if actually they are
achieving what you want them to achieve. But I think it is for
someone else to answer that question, I am afraid. I might avoid
it.
Q98 Lord Sheppard of Didgemere:
One of the things which seems to be used increasingly, over recent
years and decades, is the freezing of assets, or even the banning
of travel of individuals or organisations suspected of having
a connection with terrorism. Have you got any comments on that?
Mr Singleton: I think, in those cases, you are
targeting specific people, and I think that is fine. The general
overriding view that open trade and economic integration are good
and help promote prosperity, help promote good behaviour, in fact,
I do not think is weakened by the belief that certain individuals
who are engaged in terrorism should be excluded from travel. I
think that is perfectly fine. I would be very happy to support
that.
Q99 Lord Lawson of Blaby:
When you were making your answer to, I think it was, the first
question, you pointed out, I am sure correctly, that in the great
majority of cases sanctions have failed. Of course, that implies,
and certainly this would, that there are a number of cases where
sanctions were successful. What conclusions do you draw from the
successful cases?
Mr Singleton: I think it is tricky, I think
it is very tricky. I have not been able to find a very clear correlation.
Often it seems to come down to luck, really, which is not terribly
helpful. If it does involve something, it involves sanctions being
part of a range of instruments, and that would suggest that if
you are going to war with a country the sanctions can help cut
the time that you are at war because it puts the squeeze on. I
think also you do need pressure inside. I think there is some
evidence that you need pressure inside a country. Matthew Parris
takes the view, in one of his books, that sanctions against Rhodesia
actually strengthened support for the government, from liberal,
white people in Rhodesia, simply because, although they opposed
what their government was doing, at the end of the day they were
suffering as a result of what the British were doing and so they
became more sympathetic to the leadership. I think you have got
to be very careful with the internal pressures and analyse what
exactly will happen to public opinion inside countries when you
impose sanctions.
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