Sanctions as a Foreign Policy Tool: Weighing Humanitarian Impulses
| Date | 01 September 1999 |
| Author | Thomas G. Weiss |
| DOI | 10.1177/0022343399036005001 |
| Published date | 01 September 1999 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Sanctions as a Foreign Policy Tool:
Weighing Humanitarian Impulses
THOMAS G. WEISS
The Graduate Center, The City University of New York
journal of
peace
R
ESEARCH
© 1999 Journal of Peace Research
vol. 36, no. 5, 1999, pp. 499–509
Sage Publications (London, Thousand
Oaks, CA and New Delhi)
[0022-3433 (199909) 36:5; 499–509; 009577]
Economic sanctions have become a popular multilateral and bilateral enforcement measure in the
1990s. Their efficacy is doubtful along with their moral superiority over military force. Substantial suf-
fering by vulnerable groups in Iraq, former Yugoslavia, and Haiti has led to a ‘bust’ for this foreign
policy tool. Sanctions can be designed to be more effective and less inhumane than they are at present,
but much more research is required about their precise impact on civilians and on targeted regimes.
Early post-Cold War euphoria is giving way to more realistic and subtle assessments of the pluses and
minuses of economic and military coercion.
Non-Forcible Sanctions in the 1990s
Since the end of the Cold War, economic
coercion has become a popular response to
myriad threats to international peace and
security.1Sanctions are no longer the virtual
dead letter of the UN Charter. In 45 years,
the Security Council used them only against
Rhodesia in 1966 and South Africa in 1977.
Since 1990, the council has invoked them
over a dozen times, including comprehen-
sive sanctions against Iraq, former
Yugoslavia, and Haiti. In Africa, regional
organizations imposed them, first in
Burundi and later in Liberia and Sierra
Leone. At the bilateral level, Haas has carica-
tured Washington’s ‘sanctioning madness’
(Haas, 1997: 4) while Senator Helms has
debunked an ‘epidemic’ (Helms, 1999) that
includes American cities passing sanctions
against countries like Nigeria and Burma.
The new pattern distinguishes itself from
the old not only by the frequency with
which sanctions have been imposed, but also
by the wide range of purposes that they
serve, the centerpiece of efforts to repel
aggression, restore democracy, condemn
human rights abuse, and punish regimes
harboring terrorists and international war
criminals (Stremlau, 1996). In addition to
states, the Khmer Rouge and UNITA have
also been targets.
Growing misgivings about consistency
and transparency (Conlon, 1995; von
Braunmühl & Kulessa, 1995) have been
exacerbated because sanctions often entail
such civilian suffering as to overshadow any
potential political success (Müller & Müller,
1999). Former UN Secretary-General
Boutros-Ghali captured the troubling ten-
sions of a ‘blunt instrument’ that afflicts
vulnerable groups, complicates the work of
1The author draws upon arguments from co-authored
publications (Minear et al., 1997, 1998; Weiss et al.,
1997).
499
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