The Utility of International Economic Sanctions

David Leyton-Brown

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781351581868
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

The debate over the imposition of sanctions against South Africa indicated that economic sanctions had become a controversial feature of the international political scene. This book, first published in 1987, is an authoritative review of the problem of economic sanctions. Each chapter looks at a particular international economic sanction in detail; and all address a common set of comparative questions, dealing with the goals which can (and cannot) be achieved by the application of sanctions, the intended and unintended consequences and the factors which contribute to success or failure.

Chapter One

INTRODUCTION

David Leyton-Brown

International economic sanctions have recently enjoyed an upsurge of governmental and public attention. Over the last decade various governments, but especially those of the United States and other Western countries, have imposed or threatened economic sanctions in a wide variety of conflicts. In democratic societies there have been even more frequent demands from the public for the imposition of sanctions against foreign targets. At times it appears that economic sanctions are being looked upon as an instrument of first resort - an easy way out for governments anxious to act, and to be seen to act, whether or not the economic sanctions can and do achieve the objectives claimed for them.

This preoccupation raises important questions about the utility of international economic sanctions as a policy instrument. This volume seeks to address this issue of utility and to clarify what international economic sanctions can and cannot usefully do. If properly designed and effectively applied, international economic sanctions offer the opportunity to act firmly in pursuit of policy goals without resort to the use of military force. If not, excessive rhetoric can lead to exaggerated public expectations, which if not realised can threaten to devalue the policy instrument and diminish its utility even where it would otherwise be appropriate.

International economic sanctions are deliberate government actions to inflict economic deprivation on a target state or society, through the limitation or cessation of customary economic relations. These involve trade and financial measures, including controls upon exports to the target, restrictions upon imports from the target, and interruptions of official or commercial finance, such as cutting off aid or freezing assets. For the purposes of this study, economic sanctions will be considered only as a subset of the larger category of instruments of economic statecraft.¹ This book will focus only upon economic sanctions as tools in specific peace-time conflict situations. Though there have been many instances of the imposition of economic sanctions as part of an overall war effort, the interest here is in economic sanctions as an alternative to military force, rather than a complement to it. Economic sanctions will be distinguished from positive economic inducements, from ongoing differentiation of economic treatment in monetary or commercial relations, and from non-economic sanctions, such as the suspension of cultural exchanges or diplomatic relations.

The fundamental question most often raised about economic sanctions is, ‘Do they work?’ That in turn raises other analytic questions about the purposes, practices and consequences of sanctions. This volume seeks to offer systematic comparative analysis of major individual cases of the imposition of international economic sanctions, in order to examine the utility of sanctions in each case and to draw general conclusions about the future prospects of economic sanctions as a policy instrument in international conflict.

The cases examined here are by no means exhaustive,² but do represent the major instances of the imposition of international economic sanctions and the major consequences associated with international economic sanctions in the post-Second World War period. To ensure comparability of analysis, each author was asked to address the following questions:

1.What were the objectives which the sanctions were intended to achieve (which may involve a distinction between rhetorical and real purposes)?

2.What particular sanctions were adopted?

3.What was the effect of the sanctions on the target?

4.What was the degree of success in realisation of the objectives?

5.What factors contributed to or militated against the realisation of the objectives?

6.What unintended consequences resulted from the application of sanctions?

The various chapters have been edited to ensure uniformity of style, but each author is responsible for the accuracy of the content and footnote references.

Part one of the book examines the application of international economic sanctions by multilateral organisations. Kim Nossal contrasts the underlying philosophical purposes of economic sanctions in the Covenant of the League of Nations and the Charter of the United Nations. Douglas Anglin explores the experience of the United Nations in its two major exercises of the imposition of economic sanctions against South Africa and Rhodesia.

Part two deals with Western economic sanctions in East-West conflicts, which is perhaps the most prominent and ongoing category. Paul Evans examines the Western, and especially Canadian, experience with economic sanctions against the People’s Republic of China. Sergio Roca considers the case of economic sanctions against Cuba. Peggy Falkenheim assesses the Western sanctions against the Soviet Union following its invasion of Afghanistan. Paul Marantz evaluates the Western economic sanctions in the Polish crisis.

Part three concerns examples of international economic sanctions by non-Western states, in non-East-West conflicts. David Dewitt analyses the Arab boycott of Israel, while Roy Licklider studies the 1973 Arab oil embargo of the United States.

Part four shifts focus from the effect of economic sanctions on the target to some of the collateral or unintended effects. These two chapters assess the impact of economic sanctions on the initiator. Robert Paarlberg evaluates the consequences for the participants, especially the United States and Canada, of the 1980–81 grain embargo of the Soviet Union initiated following the invasion of Afghanistan. Bernard Wolf studies the economic impact on the United States and on US multinational corporations of the Siberian gas pipeline sanctions in 1981–82.

Part five investigates the impact of economic sanctions on third parties. Howard Stanislawski examines the economic impact on Canada and the United States of the Arab boycott of Israel, and the different legislative and regulatory responses in those two countries to the effects of the boycott. David Leyton-Brown assesses the legal and political problems which arise from the extraterritorial application of US trade sanctions, and the possible responses of affected goverments. John Kirton reviews the problems of alliance consultation and Canadian involvement in four Western sanctions cases: the Iranian hostage crisis, the Afghanistan crisis, the Polish crises, and the Falklands/Malvinas war.

Part six draws conclusions about the utility of international economic sanctions as a policy instrument. Lawrence Brady provides a most useful indication of the policy-thinking in the Reagan Administration. Finally, David Leyton-Brown clarifies lessons which may be learned about the purposes, application and effects of international economic sanctions, and offers policy prescriptions for the effective design and implementation of sanctions in the future.

Notes

1.David A. Baldwin, Economic Statecraft (Princeton University Press, Princeton N.J., 1985).

2.See Gary Hufbauer and Jeffrey J. Schott, Economic Sanctions in Support of Foreign Policy Goals (Institute for International Economics, Washington D.C., October 1983).

PART I

ECONOMIC SANCTIONS BY MULTILATERAL ORGANISATIONS

Chapter Two

ECONOMIC SANCTIONS IN THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS AND THE UNITED NATIONS

Kim Richard Nossal

The purpose of this chapter is not to survey the several attempts during the twentieth century of international organisations to deter aggression by states, to change the behaviour of members of the international system, or to punish transgressions by imposing economic sanctions against members of the society of states. That history forms the basis of an extant literature of considerable size,¹ to which a brief chapter as this could not do justice.

Rather, this chapter will discuss the mechanisms used by the two universal international organisations this century to formulate a means of securing compliance to international law. It begins by examining the distance that has grown between our understanding of sanctions in the latter part of the twentieth century, and the understanding of sanctions that underlay both the Covenant of the League of Nations and the Charter of the United Nations. The provisions of the League and the United Nations with regard to economic mechanisms of compliance will be examined in an attempt to contrast the differences between the interwar and postwar regimes.

At this juncture, it should be noted that for the purposes of this chapter I have sought to differentiate those mechanisms of compliance that are grounded in universal international organisations from those which are taken in either a multilateral or a unilateral framework. What I term in this chapter as ‘universal sanctions’ are those measures adopted by either the League or the United Nations. By contrast, ‘multilateral sanctions’ might better be thought of as those measures which are adopted under the aegis of one of the many international organisations that do not have, as one of their characteristics, the goal of universal membership and universal adherence to their norms or codes of operation. Thus, measures initiated by a regional collective security organisation such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, by such groups as the Organisation of Oil Exporting Countries, or by a regional development bank would fall under the rubric.

Similarly, unilateral sanctions are those measures introduced by one state. The state initiating these measures might seek to use its multilateral ties to add more weight to the effect of these sanctions, or to legitimise its actions by seeking support from those multilateral organisations of which it is a member. But the impetus for the sanctions is essentially unilateral.

Finally, the chapter will offer a perspective on the inutility of universal economic sanctions as a means of extracting compliance to the law from the states. The inutility of universal sanctions, it will be argued following most analytical perspectives on international law, lies in the very nature of the inter-state system, which traditionally has been fractured by contending sovereignties and politico-military rivalries, a condition that precludes either the emergence of a king of Kantian universal interest or a more Hobbesian mechanism for sanctioning transgressions of law by states. While it is hardly a conclusion that has not been drawn by others, it nonetheless should serve to remind us of the fragility of international law and the essential inability of the society of states to sanction transgression of that law.

A Semantic Digression

Semasiological quibbles may often contribute to a better understanding of a subject: David Baldwin’s recent examination of the uses and abuses of the word ‘interdependence’ is an illustration.² More often than not, however, inquiries into the meaning of words may obfuscate more than they illuminate, for the inexorable tendency of those who take semantic digressions is to seek to impose evangelistically their understanding of a word on etymological heretics. The resulting debate is rarely edifying.

By engaging in an introductory discussion of the etymology of the word ‘sanctions’, I seek neither to impose a meaning of the word that does not accord with current accepted usage, nor to divert attention from an examination of the phenomenon of economic sanctions in international politics that is rooted in contemporary political reality. My purpose is to clarify how an understanding of sanctions must be rooted in the context of their application, as I will show.

How are sanctions generally understood today? If one looked to current popular usage, one would conclude that by ‘economic sanctions’ are meant those instruments of national policy intended to deprive other target states of the benefits of economic intercourse in order to effect a change in the target state’s behaviour.

Indeed, the underlying assumption that sanctions need only involve deprivation for the target state pervades popular usage. Thus, ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Chapter One Introduction David Leyton-Brown
• Part I - Economic Sanctions by Multilateral Organisations
• Part II - Economic Sanctions in East-West Conflicts
• Part III - Economic Sanctions in Non- East-West Conflicts
• Part IV - Impact of Economic Sanctions on the Initiator
• Part V - Impact of Economic Sanctions on Third Parties
• Part VI - The Utility of Economic Sanctions
• Subject Index