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I affirm. [RESOLVED: Economic sanctions ought not be used to achieve foreign policy objectives.]
Thihan Nyun1 defines economic sanctions as
A further synthesis of the literature reveals the following definition, which will be used for this Article: economic sanctions are the actual or
withdrawal of normal trade or financial relations, imposed by the sender against the
target, for foreign policy purposes.26 Under this approach, economic sanctions are limited to restrictions on trade,
investment, and other cross-border economic activity that reduce the target country’s
revenues, thereby facilitating the desired change without resorting to military action. Because one of the primary rationales
threatened
behind economic sanctions is to avoid military conflict altogether, measures that are used in concert with military engagement are not considered
economic sanctions under this definition.27 Likewise, diplomatic protests and economic coercions that are meant to obtain general leverage in
trade negotiations are not economic sanctions.
Thus, restrictions on access to resources not intended to create policy change by reducing overall
economic revenues of a nation are not economic sanctions. Additionally, sanctions are designed to
facilitate change to an already enacted policy or foreign policy action, and are not preventative
measures.
I value MORALITY, [defined as The quality of an action which renders it good; the conformity of an act to the accepted
standard of right2,] because ought implies a moral obligation.3
Even if people are rationally ends in themselves, morality demands we minimize harm to persons. David
Cummiskey4 writes,
By emphasizing solely the one who must bear the cost if we act, one fails to sufficiently
respect and take account of the many other separate persons, each with only one life, who will bear the cost
of our inaction. In such a situation, what would a conscientious Kantian agent, an agent motivated by the unconditional value of rational beings, choose?
We have a duty to promote the conditions necessary for the existence of rational beings, but
both choosing to act and choosing not to act will cost the life of a rational being. Since the basis of Kant’s
principle is “rational nature exists as an end-in-itself” (GMM, p. 429), the reasonable solution to such a dilemma
involves promoting, insofar as one can, the conditions necessary for rational beings. If I sacrifice
some for the sake of other rational beings, I do not use them arbitrarily and I do not deny
the[ir] unconditional value of rational beings. Persons may have “dignity, an unconditional and incomparable
value” that transcends any market value (GMM, p. 436), but, as rational beings, persons also have a fundamental equality
which dictates that some must sometimes give way for the sake of ethics. The formula of the
end-in-itself thus does not support the view that we many never force another to bear some cost in order to
benefit others. If one focuses on the equal value of all rational beings, then equal consideration dictates that one
sacrifice some to save many.
Thus, the standard is minimizing human suffering. Prefer this standard for (two) additional reasons.
1
THIHAN MYO NYUN [Fellow, Frederick K. Cox International Law Center, Case Western Reserve University School of Law and
Program Officer, Uplift International.]. “FEELING GOOD OR DOING GOOD: INEFFICACY OF THE U.S. UNILATERAL
SANCTIONS AGAINST THE MILITARY GOVERNMENT OF BURMA/MYANMAR.” WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY GLOBAL
STUDIES LAW REVIEW. 2008. https://law.wustl.edu/WUGSLR/Issues/Volume7_3/nyun.pdf.
2 Webster’s Dictionary
3 Webster’s Dictionary
4 Cummiskey, David. Kantian Consequentialism. Ethics, Vol. 100, No. 3 (Apr., 1990), pp. 586-615. The University of Chicago Press.
JSTOR. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2381810.
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First, primary ethical concerns must be with how one determines what is right and wrong within a given
system. A system of ethics that claims there are side constraints but can give no rational basis for why
one thing and not another should be a side constraint ought to be rejected. However, all ethical appeals
that are based to how to distinguish between good and bad collapse into a generic rights protection. For
example, murder, even in a deontological sense, is only wrong because it deprives people of life.
However, this rights protection standard can only imply an evaluation of an action’s consequences
because all ethical theories are therefore merely based off the effect they have on human rights.
Second, the resource-allocating nature of the state means government action is evaluated through its
consequences. Sunstein and Vermeule5 explain,
In our view, both the argument from causation and the argument from intention go wrong by overlooking the distinctive features of government
as a moral agent. Whatever the general status of the act-omission distinction as a matter of moral philosophy 38 the distinction is least impressive
when applied to government. The most fundamental point is that unlike
individuals, governments always and
necessarily face a choice between or among possible policies for regulating third parties.
The distinction between acts and omissions may not be intelligible in this context, and even if it is, the distinction does
not make a morally relevant difference [because]. Most generally, government is in the business of
creating permissions and prohibitions. When it explicitly or implicitly authorizes private
action, it is not omitting to do anything, or refusing to act. Moreover, the distinction between authorized and
unauthorized private action—for example, private killing—becomes obscure when the government formally forbids private action, but chooses a
set of policy instruments that do not adequately or fully discourage it.
Means-based duties conflict and paralyze action. Rights claims come from so many different areas that
policymakers must weigh the risk of costs and benefits. Absolute rights claims paralyze action because
government cannot make a decision based on changing individual circumstances or when first duties
conflict.
Thus, all actors in the international arena have a proactive moral obligation to minimize harm to persons
even if refusing to do so allows them to express a pre-existing or means-based obligation.
I contend that economic sanctions cause human suffering.
Subpoint A: Economic sanctions are merely the lead-up step to military conflict. A prohibition in
sanctions thus decreases the likelihood of escalation. Drury and Park6 explain,
The second perspective of these coercive options is that each of these could be a step in a dispute’s chain of
escalation. For example, as State A attempts to coerce State B into accepting its demand in a dispute, State A begins
with a less severe form of negotiation or coercion such as diplomatic sanctions. If State B refuses to acquiesce, State A
will increase the pressure by moving up to economic coercion, and if that does not work, military threats
and actions (Snyder and Diesing 1977; Drury 2000, 2001; Drezner 2003) This perspective suggests that each coercive tool is
the logical (although not necessary) precedent to the next tool. Essentially, propaganda is complementary to diplomatic
sanctions, which are complementary to economic sanctions, which, in turn, complement military actions.
Each tool sends a stronger message from State A to State B, and therefore, they reinforce or complement each
other. We find the second perspective—that economic sanctions are used to complement military action—to be the most convincing.
5
Sunstein, Cass R. and Vermeule, Adrian, "Is Capital Punishment Morally Required? The Relevance of Life-Life Tradeoffs" (March
2005). U Chicago Law & Econ, Olin Working Paper No. 239; AEI-Brookings Joint Center Working Paper No. 05-06; U of Chicago, Public
Law Working Paper No. 85. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=691447
6 Cooper Drury. Johann Park. MIDS, ECONOMIC SANCTIONS, AND TRADE: THE EFFECT OF ECONOMIC COERCION ON
MILITARY DISPUTES. 2004. all Academic research.
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Using military force is a difficult option for policy makers to choose when first facing an
adversary because of the costs entailed. First, a failed military action may pose a threat to the
leader’s political survival making other, less acute options attractive. This argument is based partly upon Huth and Alee’s (2002)
political accountability model, which posits that: (1) the most overarching goal of incumbent leaders is to maintain their political position and
defend their offices from opposition and (2) in all political systems, incumbent leaders continually face political oppositions that seek to remove
The efforts of counter-elites and political opposition will be
more effective in challenging incumbent leaders when the latter’s foreign policy initiatives have failed or
proven controversial (Bueno de Mesquita and Siverson 1995; Goemans 2000; Huth and Alee 2002). Military actions against another
country at the first sign of a dispute will be relative much more risky (or at least perceived to be more risky) by the leaders
when compared to other coercive options. Although the threat of or use of military force could generate short-term
them from office and assume that position of political power.
domestic support, not only do such actions always entail possibility to erupt into full-scale military confrontation but also failed military actions
Leaders who may decide to use the
military in the future may also want to start with economic coercion to hedge their risks and
additionally, sanctions can help justify a consequent military action by proving the leader
exhausted all other coercive options (the 1991 Gulf War is an excellent example of this use of an economic sanction). This
use of economic coercion is not substitutability, which would suggest economic coercion is used
instead of military coercion. Instead, sanctions are seen as the potential lead up, if necessary, to
military action.
often cost the incumbent leaders their offices, and sometimes their lives (Rosato 2003).
These harms are empirically confirmed. Lektzian and Sprecher7 explain,
Substantively, the effect of sanctions can be seen by calculating the change in the predicted
probability of a crisis involving militarized action with and without sanctions, while holding the
other variables in the model constant at their means. The effect of sanctions on the likelihood of a crisis
involving the use of military force is to increase the probability of militarized conflict by
17%, resulting in a near doubling of the probability of conflict from .18 without sanctions
to .35 with sanctions.
Moreover, prefer the study on rigorous methodology and isolation of the causal variable of economic
sanctions. Lektzian and Sprecher TWO continue,
Because our theoretical argument concludes that sanctions are likely to lead to militarized conflict, we have been careful to always lag our
sanctions variables on the right-hand side. However, one
might still object that the analysis only shows that
sanctions and conflict are coincidental and not that sanctions lead to military conflict.
Therefore, as a final test, we analyze a model of sanctions initiation that includes militarized
conflict as a lagged explanatory variable for the occurrence of sanctions onset. If one form
of conflict simply makes another form of conflict more likely, then we should be just as likely to see lagged
militarized conflict as a positive explanatory variable for sanctions. However, if we find
that lagged sanctions lead to militarized conflict (as we have) but that lagged militarized conflict does not lead to
sanctions, this would strengthen the argument made here. The previous models in this article were focused on
militarized conflict and are not intended to explain the onset of sanctions. Therefore, we modify our model in accordance with an existing model
of dyadic sanctions onset (Lektzian and Souva 2003) and include a lagged variable on the right-hand side for militarized conflict. Table 4 shows
the results of this analysis and confirms that, while
sanctions tend to lead to militarized conflict, the reverse
is not true. Previous work by Lektzian and Souva (2003) used a GEEmodel to estimate the onset of sanctions and only focused on
politically relevant dyads. The results, reported in Table4, for the all-dyads model are very similar to their findings. The only variables to change
sign or significance are relative capabilities, which they found to be negative and significant, and we found to be negative but insignificant, and
the effect of distance. They found distance to be insignificant, and we found that the further states are from one another, the less likely they are to
use sanctions. Of most importance to this article is that lagged militarized conflict does not significantly increase the probability of sanctions
onset in either the all-dyads model, or the model of existing crises. This may be why existing empirical work on the onset of sanctions by Cox
“Sanctions, Signals, and Militarized Conflict.” David J. Lektzian [University of new Orleans] and Christopher M. Sprecher [Texas A &
M]. American Journal of Political Science, Vol. 51, No. 2 (Apr., 2007), pp. 415-431. Midwest Political Science Association.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/4620074.
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and Drury (2006) and Lektzian and Souva (2003) does not include militarized conflict as an explanatory variable for the onset of sanctions.
Evaluating the BIC statistic for Models 6 and 7 provides very strong support for the all-dyads model without lagged militarized conflict
(difference in BIC= 12.864)and positive support for the model with- out lagged militarized conflict in the crises dyads sample (difference in BIC
= 2.990). Thus, we conclude that there
is more to this relationship than one form of conflict simply
being associated with the other. Sanctions, as our signaling argument expects, increase the probability of militarized conflict
when they are used by democracies and when they are made to be costless to the sender. Militarized conflicts, however, do not increase the
probability of economic sanctions.
And, even a small number of wars ended or prevented is a significant impact because of the magnitude
of deaths from war. Obermeyer8 et al explain:
Results From 1955 to 2002, data from the surveys indicated an estimated 5.4 million violent war
deaths (95% confidence interval 3.0 to 8.7 million) in 13 countries, ranging from 7000 in the Democratic Republic of Congo to 3.8
million in Vietnam. From 1995 to 2002 survey data indicate 36 000 war deaths annually (16 000 to 71 000) in the 13 countries studied. Data
from passive surveillance, however, indicated a figure of only a third of this. On the basis of the
relation between world health survey data and passive reports, we estimate 378 000 globalwar deaths annually from 1985-94, the last years for
which complete passive surveillance data were available. Conclusions The use of data on sibling history from peacetime population surveys can
retrospectively estimate mortality from war. War
evidence to support a recent decline in war deaths.
causes more deaths than previously estimated, and there is no
Subpoint B: Sanctions destroy fair resource allocation and rights protection by criminalizing
government policymaking.
Sanctions only become a justification for deflecting the economic burden onto criminal and corrupt
government activity. Peter Andreas9 explains how sanctions on Yugoslavia had this effect:
A state-sponsored embargo-busting system eventually became institutionalized with the help of
key actors close to Miloˇsevic ́ in the State Security and the Interior Ministry of which it was a part. To oversee and regulate sanctions busting,
Miloˇsevic ́ appointed Mihalj KertesFwho had earlier played a leadership role in coordinating the smuggling of arms to Croatian and Bosnian
SerbsFas head of the customs office in 1994. As the institution that could most effectively collect currency,
the Customs Service
became the heart of the regime’s clandestine financial structure. As the head of Serbia’s Central Bank
observed in 2001, the Customs Service ‘‘was Miloˇsevic ́’s primary source of cash, and it never ran dry.’’17 Kertes was crucial to the
[a government] office provided import and ex-port permits
to those loyal to Miloˇsevic ́ and those who proved most adept at circumventing UN monitors. Some
members of the regime came to wealth and power owing to these customs office permits. The customs post allowed Kertes to
generate[d] substantial revenue for the regime by organizing and taking a cut of the illicit
commerce. In September 1994, Kertes explained, ‘‘I don’t care if it’s legal or not, I only care if it makes a profit.’’18 The Customs
service thus became the central office for state-organized crime. Kertes restructured the Customs Service,
organization of the embargo-busting trade, as his
replacing trained and experienced staff with people he trusted, from his home town of Bacˇka Palanka, whom he personally hired by invitation.19
Those who
complained had their goods seized or would have to pay more. The Customs Service also
selectively confiscated money from locals and foreigners who were carrying cash over the
border. As all formal international financial transactions were frozen by the sanctions, most remittances entered the FRY as smuggled
They were then assigned to border crossings, where there were the biggest opportunities to skim from the smuggling trade.
German marks (DEM). Disciplinary action against Customs officials would only be taken against those who stole from someone who was under
Kertes’ protection.20 The highly selective nature of customs enforcement thus provided windfall profits for those with official connections.
The result was a massive redistribution of wealth via state-sponsored clandestine
“Fifty years of violent war deaths from Vietnam to Bosnia: analysis of data from the world health survey programme.” Ziad Obermeyer
[research science, Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, University of Washington, Seattle, WA and Harvard Medical School],
Christopher J L Murray [institute director, Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, University of Washington], Emmanuela Gakidou
[associate professor, Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, University of Washington]. BMJ 2008; 336:1482-1486.
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/reprint/336/7659/1482.
9 “Criminalizing Consequences of Sanctions: Embargo Busting and Its Legacy.” Peter Andreas [Brown University]. International Studies
Quarterly (2005).
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commerce. ‘‘Sanctions are paradise,’’ one sanctions buster told a foreign journalist. ‘‘Normally
you import and pay duties and then taxes. But under sanctions, if you know the right people, you pay no
duties and no taxes, and you have the excuse of charging more. Sanctions are what
cemented Miloˇsevic ́’s power.’’21 Successfully evading the sanctions through clandestine imports required not only porous
borders but also access to foreign exchange to pay for the smuggled goods. The Miloˇsevic ́ government therefore turned to various financial
schemes. One method was to simply print large quantities of dinar notes and then deploy money changers to buy up foreign exchange on the
The currency black market predated the sanctions, but it became far more important under
sanctions because the country’s international economic isolation meant that imports had to
be paid for in cash. By early 1993, 40 percent of the supply of dinars were being used to sop up hard currency on the currency black
market (Minic ́, 1993:6). The large-scale printing of dinars, in turn, generated one of the most
extreme episodes of hyperinflation in history.
black market.
Additionally, the sanctions and modifications to government policy designed to avoid their economic
burden produced a culture of tolerating corrupt activity. Andreas TWO continues,
Although sanctions busting generated high profits for some, for most people the turn to the underground
economy was simply part of a survival strategy. Indeed, as Dinkic ́ has argued, the Miloˇsevic ́
government ‘‘deliberately encouraged black markets’’ to prevent social unrest. ‘‘Everyone
realized that it was far more profitable to smuggle or sell goods on the street. These activities at first served as an additional source of income but
for many people soon became a full-time occupation.’’ This, however, had socially corrosive effects. According to Dinkic ́ (1995:229–30), the
black market ‘‘encouraged the complete collapse of moral standards. Honesty became a
burden, while dishonesty was a virtue and a basic condition of survival. This inevitably led
to an increase in corruption and crime, which assumed staggering proportions.’’ In other words,
the societal effect of sanctions was to propel the growth of ‘‘uncivil society.’’ Smuggling is present in all societies, but in the FRY under
sanctions it became ‘‘normal’’Fthat is, the expected and accepted method of trade. Indeed, in contrast to other
countries where smuggling is at least condemned even if not fully con- fronted by the authorities, in the FRY it was elevated to the
status of a patriotic duty in the early 1990s. The Belgrade government publicly praised those who became ‘‘entrepreneurial’’
under the sanctions.26 A recent study of corruption in the Serbian Customs Administration (Begovic ́ et al., 2001:99) noted that under the
sanctions, ‘‘all
dealings bringing goods into the state (smuggling, corruption, and so on) were
not viewed as breaking the law but rather as holy patriotic missions.’’ In this fertile environment for
criminality, high-profile criminals such as Arkan became local ce- lebrities and role models, and were treated as patriots by the Belgrade media.
Moreover, the criminalizing consequences of sanctions have lasting ripple effects on world corruption.
Andreas THREE:
This article also points to the importance of geographically extending the focus of analysis to include an evaluation of the criminalizing
repercussions of sanctions for neighboring countries. The typical focus in the sanctions literature on ‘‘senders’’ and ‘‘targets’’ pays far too little
the criminalizing
consequences of sanctions can have significant regional ripple effects. Equally important, just as the
attention to third parties and the regional context within which sanctions take place.91 As we have seen,
analysis of sanctions should be extended geographically for a region- wide perspective, it should also be extended temporally. It is striking that
the sanctions debate has so little to say about the aftermath and legacy of sanctions, including the criminalized residue that may be left over from
sanctions. For
example, the European Union now considers Serbia and Montenegro as an
organized crime gateway to Western Europe. The imposition of comprehensive sanctions
by the international community unintentionally encouraged much closer state-criminal ties
and large-scale smuggling, and now in the post-sanctions period, the international
community has blamed organized crime and corruption for blocking much needed
reforms. Rarely is there any Western acknowledgment of having contributed to the problem in the first place. A notable exception is the
notes of a Stockholm Process Working Group (2002): ‘‘Regarding measures for dealing with those who have enriched themselves under
sanctions and who continue to present obstacles to reform in
Serbia, the international community should consider working with the Serbian
government to create a ‘‘cordon sanitaire’’ around the most important offenders.’’ The Working Group also observed that ‘‘patterns of
smuggling and unofficial economic activity’’ originating in sanctions busting have now
‘‘made it extremely difficult for the new government to collect taxes.’’ Some might be tempted to
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conclude that the main lesson to be learned from these patterns of sanctions evasion is the need to bolster the UN’s enforcement capacity.
Cortright and Lopez (2000:5) echo the common view that the UN system ‘‘lacks the ability to administer sanctions.’’ But while there is certainly
much truth in this claim, they also consider the FRY sanctions case to be a rare model of high enforcement capacity and effectiveness, describing
it as the most rigorous implementation effort ever attempted in the history of sanctions. Thus, unfortunately, if the experience in the FRY is any
indicator, more rigorous sanctions enforcement runs the risk of unintentionally exacerbating the criminalizing consequences of sanctions without
necessarily making sanctions much less porous. Further
tightening the sanctions net around a targeted
country may simply push out small-time freelance operators while further inflating profits
and enhancing market position for the most sophisticated and well-organized smugglers. It
may also geographically spread the sanctions evasion problem, as enforcement pressure in
one area leads to more evasion elsewhere. Some of these dynamics have long been evident in law enforcement efforts to
curb other market-driven transnational crimes such as drug trafficking and migrant smuggling. In this regard, sanctions enforcement and
sanctions evasion should be viewed as part of the much broader set of interactions between transnational crime and crime control.
There are two further implications:
First, sanctions fail to impact the target country politically and only hurt the economy of the least
advantaged population that cannot create political change. Because governments can merely redirect the
harms of sanctions, they fail at achieving their foreign policy objectives. Moreover, because of the
lasting nature of corruption, reform efforts in the target are even worse off than pre-sanction levels
because of their inability to gain leverage or economic viability.
(__) Second, the government’s unwillingness to fulfill its basic obligations to citizens violates basic
human rights. The UN Development Programme10 explains,
The negative impact of corruption on development is no longer questioned. Corruption hinders economic development,
reduces social services, and diverts investments in infrastructure, institutions and social
services.4 The World Bank5 distinguishes between two main forms of corruption: state capture and administrative corruption. State capture
refers to the actions of individuals, groups or firms, both in the public and private sectors, who influence the formation of laws, regulations,
decrees and other government policies to their advantage as a result of the illicit and non- transparent provisions of private benefits to public
officials. Administrative corruption refers to the intentional imposition of distortions in the prescribed implementation of existing laws, rules and
regulations to provide advantages to either government or non- government actors as a result of the illicit and non-transparent provision of private
gains to public officials. Investors
will be reluctant to invest in development efforts in a country
where there is state capture and administrative corruption. In addition, international donors would not lend to
a country with high corruption affecting the human rights and right to development of poor people in that country. Corruption can also be
classified as petty (need based) and grand (greed based) corruption. Petty corruption is found where public servants who may be grossly
underpaid depend on small kickbacks from the public to feed their families and pay school fees. Grand corruption involves high officials who
make decisions on large public contracts6. Here too, there is a negative impact on the poor as they cannot afford to provide any gains to public
officials, or if they do, it constitutes a great part of their earnings which they could have otherwise used for their own subsistence or development.
2.2. Corruption and Human Rights. The Seoul findings7 declared that large scale corruption should be designated a crime against humanity, as
for many around the world it falls into the same category as torture, genocide and other
crimes against humanity that rob humans of human dignity. The findings condemned corruption as immoral,
unjust and repugnant to the ideals of humanity enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and confirmed the conviction that all
human beings have a basic human right to live in a corruption-free society. A
corrupt state creates a vicious circle in
which the state quickly loses its authority and ability to govern for the common good.
Corruption makes it possible for critics to be silenced, for justice to be subverted and for
human rights abuses to go unpunished. When corruption reigns, basic human rights and
liberties come under threat and social and economic contracts become unpredictable.
Therefore corruption affects both civil and political rights, as well as economic, social, and
cultural rights. The concept that rights include all rights has now received judicial acceptance in the South African courts, where it has
been held that Section 7(2) of the Constitution of South Africa ‘requires the State to respect, protect, promote and fulfil the rights in the Bill of
“The impact of corruption on the human rights based approach to development.” United Nations Development Programme: Oslo
Governance Centre: The Democratic Governance Fellowship Programme. September 2004.
http://www.undp.org/oslocentre/docs05/Thusitha_final.pdf.
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Rights. In this regard, given that socio-economic rights are expressly included in the Bill, the question is not whether they are justiciable, but how
to enforce them in a given case’11.
Subpoint C: Economic sanctions empirically give leaders an incentive for continued human rights
repression and continuation of the policies sanctions are designed to prevent. Peksen and Drury11
explain,
Significant audience costs—the idea that interactions with other countries have domestic political consequences—result from the imposition of
economic sanctions, particularly when aimed at democratic reform (Galtung 1967; see also Fearon 1994; Schultz 1998). When
an
external actor demands political reforms from another regime, the targeted leadership
usually perceives the foreign pressure as a threat to sovereignty and particularly to regime
survival (Morgan 1995; Morgan and Schwebach 1997; Ang and Peksen 2007). Specifically, the targeted leadership is likely to
surmise that conceding to the foreign pressure will decrease their legitimacy and support in
the country. Therefore, to mitigate any possible audience costs caused by conceding to the sanctions, the
regime has an incentive to put greater pressure on opposition groups to show its
determination against any external pressure for reform. Furthermore, the regime may fear that the sanctions
themselves will embolden their opposition. Economic pressure especially aimed at political reforms, such as more democratic freedoms, can
easily be seen as a signal from international actors to domestic pro-reform groups (Thyne 2006). The leadership will see such a signal as a direct
threat to their tenure and have yet another reason— directly caused by the sanctions—to crack down on any anti-government groups.
Consequently, a
fierce reaction against the threat or imposition of sanctions will allow a regime
to demonstrate to the public its strength and resolve against challenges to its leadership. For
instance, Morgan (1995) notes that the American sanctions against China following the Tiananmen Square incident had
been fiercely rejected by the Chinese government because of the perception of the sanctions
as a crucial foreign challenge to the regime stability. While the U.S. demand for greater respect of civil and political
liberties in China was largely symbolic, Beijing viewed their repressive policies as an essential tool to
maintaining power. Any accommodations by the PRC could result in the government’s loss of power. “[M]any in the mainland
government believe that without the ability to repress opposition their hold on power is lost... American calls for political freedom and civil
liberties in mainland China may be heard as calls for political suicide by the mainland government” (Morgan 1995: 36). Supporting Morgan’s
claim, Drury and Li (2006) find empirical evidence suggesting that the threat of
economic coercion against Chinese authorities to
promote political liberalization was counterproductive, which led to fewer Chinese accommodations.
Thus, the possible audience costs involved in conceding to the sender’s demands lead targeted regimes to take further repressive measures against
their citizenry to maintain the status quo.
Additionally, sanctions fuel terrorism by creating humanitarian crises. Eric Lobsinger12 writes,
Despite the long practice of nation states placing trade sanctions on one another, there exist several shortcomings of whole-nation sanctions in the
current fight against terrorism. One objection to conventional sanctions, which may be applicable to all whole-nation sanctions and not just
Article XXI measures, is that traditional sanctions tend to place
hardship on those who are powerless instead
of putting pressure on the intended targets. n71 This can lead to severe humanitarian crises, a
significant concern in its own right, but also a contributing problem in the spread of terrorist ideology. Wholenation sanctions have the powerful ability to disrupt the economic development of the target country,
thereby crippling a number of economic opportunities for people in the target country. This in
turn may breed an environment of dissatisfaction and hostility, fodder for ideological
extremism and terrorism. n72 Thus, the long-term harmful effects on innocent populations--a virtual inevitability from wholenation sanctions--need to be seriously weighed in order to avoid disastrous unintended consequences of not only the humanitarian kind but of the
national security kind as well.
Dursun Peksen and A. Cooper Drury [Department of Political Science, University of Missouri]. “PRIMUM NON NOCERE (FIRST, DO
NO HARM): ECONOMIC SANCTION’S CORROSIVE IMPACT ON DEMOCRACY.” At least 2007.
http://www.truman.missouri.edu/uploads/events/Do%20No%20Harm.pdf.
12 Eric J. Lobsinger 2006 [LL.D. candidate, Kyushu University, Graduate School of Law, Fukuoka, Japan. LL.M., Kyushu University,
2004; J.D., Washington University in St. Louis, 2003; A.B., Washington University in St. Louis, 2000.] “DIMINISHING BORDERS IN
TRADE AND TERRORISM: AN EXAMINATION OF REGIONAL APPLICABILITY OF GATT ARTICLE XXI NATIONAL
SECURITY TRADE SANCTIONS.” ILSA Journal of International & Comparative Law 13 ILSA J Int'l & Comp L 99 (Fall 2006)
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Even if terrorists don’t have resources, a) the neg can never cut off ALL terrorist resources because they
can always find another bank or source of supply, and b) more terrorist members makes it easier to
access resources despite sanctions, and to carry out tasks that don’t require large expenditures.
Finally, the international isolation created by sanctions alleviates pressure for democratic reform.
Peksen and Drury 2 write,
A second enhancement to the regime’s ability to coerce is the isolation of sanctioned countries from the global economic and political system. Put
simply, as
foreign economic coercion increases the diplomatic and economic isolation of a
target country in the global arena, the target regimes can more easily carry out political purges.
Specifically, the initial goal of economic sanctions is to restrict economic, cultural, and political exchanges between targeted countries and the
outside world. Earlier research
suggests that sanctions significantly discourage international trade
and investment within the targeted regimes from sanctioning as well as non-sanctioning third countries (Hufbauer et al.
1997; Fisk 2000; Yang et al. 2004). Economic coercion also restricts the ability of independent media
outlets, civil society groups, and intellectuals to communicate with other countries (Weiss et al.
1997; Cortright et al. 2001). Thus, sanctions isolate the targeted regimes from outside influence and
thereby significantly limit the international support for pro-democracy movements. Casestudy evidence from the cases such as the UN sanctions against the former Yugoslavia (Devin
and Dasti-Gibson 1997) and Iraq (Hoskins 1997), and the American sanctions against Haiti (Gibbons 1999)
uniformly further silenced the anti-regime movements in the targets by isolating the
regimes and subsequently enhancing the leadership’s control over the flow of information
within the state.
The impact is that sanctions are counterproductive because they a) fail to create international pressure
for reform, and b) fracture the opposition movement’s relationship with the international community.
This destroys any potential for reform even after sanctions are lifted because relationships with groups
demanding reform and the sentiment that the international community is behind them becomes
meaningless.