Following the publication of The Sanctions Decade — lauded as the definitive history and accounting of United Nations sanctions in the 1990s — David Cortright and George Lopez continue their collaboration to examine the changing context and meaning of sanctions and the security dilemmas that the Security Council now faces.
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.
“A Hard Look at Iraq Sanctions” by David Cortright, The Nation, December 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.
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.
“Re-energizing Sanctions,” by David Cortright and Alistair Millar in San Francisco Chronicle, 18 January 2001.
“Powers of Persuasion: Sanctions and Incentives in the Shaping of International Society” by David Cortright, International Studies, vol. 38, no. 2 (2001).
“The Limits of Coercion” by David Cortright and George A. Lopez, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (November/December 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).