REVISITING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF SANCTIONS AS A FOREIGN POLICY TOOL: THE CASE OF NORTH KOREA

Introduction

Sanctions can be defined as restrictions placed on an entity with the aim of altering its behavior. Article 41 of the UN Charter mentions sanctions as one of the instruments the UN Security Council can use to maintain international peace and security although several governments as well as regional organizations have on their own initiative announced sanctions as a coercive tool. Interestingly, a majority of UN sanctions are preceded by unilateral or regional sanctions (Brzoska, 2015).

Due to complaints that sanctions against a state tend to harm innocent civilians as witnessed in Iraq in the 1990s, there has been an emerging shift towards targeted sanctions on individuals, non-state entities, particular regions or sectors of the economies instead of the entire state (Charron, Giumelli and Portela, 2015). However, Kanji (2016) is of the opinion that sanctions can never absolutely avoid affecting the general population hence the focus should be on minimizing that effect while attaining objectives.

Meanwhile, Charron and Portela (2015) point out that Africa has been on the receiving end of sanctions by being the most targeted continent whether before or after the Cold War era not only by the United Nations but by the European Union and Africa’s regional bodies too. Rwanda in 1994 and the UNITA faction in Angola in 1993 are among African countries to have faced what is known as ‘smart sanctions’ that included asset freezes, travel ban on leaders and arms embargoes (Malloch-Brown and Gibson, 2015).

There is no definite scholarly consensus on the success of sanctions and how to measure that said success. It is however easier to know when sanctions have failed hence this research is an attempt to dig into that debate and help arrive at some level of agreement on the way forward in determining the effectiveness of sanctions as a tool of foreign policy.

Why a Case Study of North Korea?

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea(DPRK) also referred to as North Korea has been under United Nations sanctions for quite some time now with the aim of coercing the state to denuclearize and return to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty although compliance is largely dependent on how China behaves (Jones, 2018). The inability to completely cut off North Korea’s access to goods and force a change in behavior brings into question the relevance of sanctions despite arguments by the likes of Huish (2018) that the effectiveness of international maritime sanctions following the issuance of Executive Order 13810 in September 2017 pushed Kim Jong-un to meet Donald Trump in Singapore as Washington pursued a policy of maximum pressure.

Whereas a summit is a good starting point, such celebrations are premature since Huish acknowledges that the regime has not been deterred from pursuing nuclear tests or overseeing gross human rights violations. Without mincing her words, Rosenberg (2019) dismissed the Hanoi summit that came after the one in Singapore as a failure by questioning the credibility and clarity of Trump’s diplomatic strategy while at the same time asserting that even the multilateral nature of sanctions against North Korea have had implementation challenges as many UN member states find trade with Pyongyang either lucrative or diplomatically valuable.

When are sanctions considered successful and how is that achieved?

Sanctions have a chance of success especially institutional ones where member countries do not engage in frustrating such efforts as was the case when the Arab League imposed sanctions against Egypt in 1978 in the aftermath of the Camp David agreement (Early and Spice, 2015). Early and Spice add that based on enforcement theory, smaller international institutions tend to be more effective with enforcement of sanctions within their members than larger international institutions.

According to Kanji (2016), targeted sanctions against Libya in the 1990s that were imposed on arms sales, aviation and foreign assets are generally regarded to have been successful since the regime ended its support for terrorism and gave up its nuclear technology endeavors. What is not clear is if such success can be attributed to sanctions alone since there were other diplomatic efforts on top of Muammar Qaddafi’s unpredictability. Nevertheless, sanctions against Fiji were hailed as fruitful for having forced President Frank Bainimarama to keep his promise of holding elections after a bloodless coup in 2006 (Malloch-Brown and Gibson, 2015).

In looking at the effect of international sanctions on conflict intensity, Hultman and Peksen (2017) contend that sanctions in the form of arms embargoes can reduce the military capacity of the target actors thereby reducing or undermining the intensity of conflicts while economic sanctions could reduce state resources allocated to war like military expenditures. A key concern could still be how damaging are economic sanctions on target economies? In a study conducted by Shin et al. (2016) based on three economic indicators that is international trade, foreign direct investment and foreign portfolio investment, the findings paint a grim picture for foreign policy thinkers since they conclude that economic coercion damages none of the investigated economic indicators of the target. 

The United States has also used its dominance of financial markets by for example threatening to cut off banks and other financial institutions from accessing US markets to bring some success to sanctions with Iran being one of the casualties (Brzoska, 2015).  Having positioned itself as the leader of the global financial system, Feaver and Lorber (2015) agree that legitimate financial institutions have been forced to throw out any business with targeted countries and individuals for fear of being locked out of the U.S. financial system.

Where did sanctions fail and why?

Brzoska (2015) argues that the US and the EU have continuously piled up additional sanctions on entities under UN sanctions which is a pointer to growing dissatisfaction with the effectiveness of such sanctions as time goes by.  In 1962 when the UNGA called upon its members to impose economic sanctions on the Apartheid regime in South Africa, Early and Spice (2015) opine that a good number of member countries including the United States, United Kingdom and Germany undercut such measures as well as many of the OAU members who were highly dependent on Rhodesia and South Africa for their economic survival.

The role of third party actors is very crucial in the success or failure of sanctions. According to Early and Spice (2015), such actors can impose weak sanctions that they moderately enforce or encourage trade with the target in light of the commercial opportunities created as a result of the sanctions. Where the target is the state, the ruling elite may divert resources from other public spending priorities to use in sanction-busting activities through illegal smuggling or underground economic transactions with third-party governments and private actors as was seen in Ivory Coast where arms embargoes did not reduce weapon inflows (Hultman and Peksen, 2017).

In as much as third parties can be problematic, Bapat and Kwon (2015) bring attention to the dilemma sanctioning states or senders face when it comes to enforcing their own sanction laws against their firms by showing that senders tend to scale back where restrictions of economic activities on the targeted states will put the competitiveness of their firms at a disadvantage. One of the examples given is the failure by both the Bush and Clinton administrations to enforce sanctions against China over the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown due to fear of restricting American firms from doing business with China especially after the quick suspension of both European and Japanese sanctions.

Another perspective on why sanctions fail can be traced to what Shin et al. (2016) term as economic regionalism. This stems from the fact that over 50% of all world trade is currently undertaken within regional trade agreements such as the EU, NAFTA, ASEAN, APEC and MERCOSUR which gives an opportunity for political leaders in targeted states to turn to their trade bloc members to emasculate sanctions by non-member countries hence preventing or curtailing intended economic hardships.

The duration of sanctions can have an impact on their effectiveness too as stated by Miller (2016) while discussing how Russia’s reduced economic leverage over its neighbors has made Kremlin’s sanctions far less painful to Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia who have since diverted business elsewhere and gravitated towards the EU.  To sum up this section on failure of sanctions, Malloch-Brown and Gibson (2015) remind us of Cuba whose embargo began in 1960 before Barack Obama was born but the Castro brothers survived and although one has passed on, the other is still here with us having marketed themselves as victims both internally and externally and due to the inability of the United States to credibly remove sanctions if their demands are met because the President has to deal with an obstructing Congress. Can sanctions ever work?

Are sanctions still necessary as a foreign policy tool?

As the debate on the relevance of sanctions continues, it is important to note that measuring their success is often difficult since sanctions always do not operate in isolation. Combined sanctions against Russia by the Obama administration and partners in the European Union did not inflict much pain until oil prices unexpectedly dropped which almost crippled the Russian economy as foreign direct investment fizzled out - the White House took credit but Putin remained defiant (Feaver and Lorber, 2015).

Jones (2018) makes an argument that whereas the easiest thing would be to blame China for enabling North Korea to evade sanctions, there is need to give hard thought on whether Beijing has lost considerable leverage to influence Pyongyang as well as the possibility that North Korea has developed networks that can evade China’s pattern of enforcement.

From this preliminary literature review, it is clear that there are no easy answers to the question of necessity or relevance of sanctions. At the same time, apart from clear cut cases such as the sanctions on Fiji, agreeing on what constitutes successful sanctions in other circumstances remains problematic or contentious hence justifying the need for this research. 

References

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Brzoska, M. (2015). International sanctions before and beyond UN sanctions. International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1944-), Vol. 91, No.6, The United Nations at 70 (November 2015), pp. 1339-1349. Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Institute of International Affairs.

Charron, A., Giumelli, F., & Portela, C. (2015). Introduction: the United Nations and targeted sanctions. International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1944-), Vol. 91, No.6, The United Nations at 70 (November 2015), pp. 1335-1337. Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Institute of International Affairs.

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