Targeted Sanctions and Individual Human Rights
| Date | 01 March 2010 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070201006500107 |
| Published date | 01 March 2010 |
| Author | Thomas J. Biersteker |
| Subject Matter | Article |
| International Journal | Winter 2009-10 | 99 |
Thomas J. Biersteker is Gasteyger Professor of International Security at the Graduate
Institute, Geneva. This article draws heavily on “Strengthening targeted sanctions through
fair and clear procedures,” also known as the “Watson report,” co-written with Sue E.
Eckert, and “Addressing challenges to targeted sanctions: An update of the ‘Watson
report’.” The author acknowledges with gratitude Sue Eckert’s many contributions to the
collaborative process. The article is also a significantly revised and updated version of a
paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Studies Association in San
Francisco, March 2008.
Since the beginning of the 1990s, the UN security council has experimented
with, developed, and refined the instrument of targeted sanctions. Targeted
sanctions were first introduced in 1992 to isolate and pressure the political
leadership of Libya to turn over individuals suspected of involvement in the
attacks on Pan Am and UTA. They were developed and refined with the
financial targeting of the military leadership of the Raoul Cédras regime
in 1994, following its overthrow of the democratically elected government
in Haiti. The UN’s move to targeted sanctions was complete following
the full realization of the humanitarian crisis caused by the imposition
of comprehensive sanctions against Iraq in the mid- to late 1990s (and
Thomas J. Biersteker
Targeted sanctions
and individual
human rights
| 100 | Winter 2009-10 | International Journal |
1 Thomas J. Biersteker, “Building and maintaining an international regime to counter
the financing of terrorism,” in Steve Tsang, ed.. Combating Transnational Terrorism
(New York and London: Routledge, 2009).
the inability of the oil-for-food program to relieve adequately the human
suffering involved). As a result of the debacle caused by the imposition of
comprehensive sanctions against Iraq, all UN sanctions today are targeted
sanctions.
Sanctions can be targeted in a number of different ways—against an
individual, against a corporate entity (such as a firm or political party),
against a sector of an economy (an arms embargo, aviation ban, or a ban
on the trade in high-value commodities like diamonds, oil, or timber),
or against a single region of a country (as in the Democratic Republic of
the Congo). They can be used for a variety of different purposes, from the
pursuit of individuals for legal prosecution to efforts to halt massive human
rights violations, to enforce the terms of peace agreements, to counter the
financing of terrorism, or to prevent or delay the proliferation of weapons of
mass destruction.
There are both theoretical and practical advantages to the use of targeted
sanctions, particularly when they are compared with the bluntness and
relatively indiscriminate nature of comprehensive sanctions. In contrast
to comprehensive sanctions, targeted sanctions can be applied gradually,
combined with positive incentives, and relaxed more readily in the case of
partial compliance by the targets of sanctions. There is an “all or nothing”
character to comprehensive sanctions, and any relaxation or adaptation is
often interpreted as a weakening of political resolve among the sanctioning
parties. If properly targeted and implemented, targeted sanctions do not
penalize an entire population for actions taken by an unrepresentative (and
often unelected) elite. They can relieve the sanctions instrument of some,
but not necessarily all, of its negative humanitarian costs.
With the unusually rapid development of the regime to counter the
financing of terrorism after 2001, with its national legal harmonization,
parallel reporting requirements, and institutionalization within financial
institutions, the potential effectiveness of multilateral targeted sanctions
measures has been significantly enhanced.1 As a result, assuming a
consensus can be maintained among the permanent five members of the
UN security council, the application of targeted financial sanctions is likely
to be more common, and possibly more effective, in the future.
| Thomas J. Biersteker |
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