Book — 2002

In recent years, international attention has turned toward the use of targeted, “smart” sanctions that minimize unintended humanitarian consequences and focus coercive pressure on responsible decision makers. Some of the world’s leading sanctions experts and practitioners join together in this book to provide the first published account of the emerging theory and practice of smart sanctions. The essays examine recent uses of targeted financial sanctions, travel sanctions, and arms embargoes, and offer recommendations for improving their design and implementation.

Magazine article — December 2001

“A Hard Look at Iraq Sanctions” by David Cortright, The Nation, December 2001.

Report — November 2001

The Security Council has significantly improved UN sanctions policy in recent years. Most notable have been steps toward sharpening sanctions design, applying more targeted measures called ‘smart sanctions,’ strengthening monitoring and enforcement, and prioritizing humanitarian concerns. Yet these advances have been compromised by competing political agendas among the five permanent members of the Security Council, inadequate compliance by member states, and a lack of institutionalized UN capacity for monitoring and enforcement.

This report discusses these countervailing trends in detail and sketches some ways in the near term in which the Security Council could improve the effectiveness of sanctions.

Report — April 2001

This study explores the possibility of an alternative to the UN comprehensive embargo that has been in place since 1990. Our investigation is prompted by the continued erosion of the economic sanctions and the possible breakdown of controls on Iraq’s production of weapons of mass destruction. To the extent that there is a bias in this report, it is in the direction of affirming the role of sanctions as a viable tool of Security Council action when global norms are violated, while aiming that such sanctions be as humane as possible.

Newspaper article — 18 January 2001

“Re-energizing Sanctions,” by David Cortright and Alistair Millar in San Francisco Chronicle, 18 January 2001.

Journal article — 2001

“Powers of Persuasion: Sanctions and Incentives in the Shaping of International Society” by David Cortright, International Studies, vol. 38, no. 2 (2001).

Journal article — November/December 2000

“The Limits of Coercion” by David Cortright and George A. Lopez, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (November/December 2000).

Journal article — Summer 2000

“Learning from the Sanctions Decade” by George A. Lopez and David Cortright, Global Dialogue, vol. 2, no. 3 (Summer 2000).

Report — June 2000

“Positive Inducements in International Statecraft” by David Cortright in Fraser Forum. Based on a paper of the same title commissioned by the Fraser Institute (June 2000).

Book — 2000

Since the end of the Cold War, economic sanctions have been a frequent instrument of UN authority, imposed by the Security Council against nearly a dozen targets. Some efforts appear to have been successful, others are more doubtful; all, though, have been controversial. This book is based on more than two hundred interviews with sanctions experts and officials from the UN and many countries. It provides the first comprehensive assessment of the effectiveness of UN sanctions during the 1990s.