With the demise of Milosevic reinforcing the U.N. instinct to impose comprehensive trade restrictions only in the most extreme cases, the use of such selective or targeted measures has become the wave of the future for the United Nations. The latest example of this trend was the November 1999 travel and financial sanctions imposed against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. The use of more targeted measures, if properly enforced, could be a means of enhancing the effectiveness of sanctions while reducing their adverse humanitarian consequences. Substantial improvements in international compliance will be necessary, however, for financial sanctions, arms embargoes and travel sanctions to have the kind of targeted impact sanctions reformers seek. In the last few years the Swiss government has led an international initiative to address the challenge of freezing assets and blocking financial transactions of designated individuals.
Many countries lack the legal and administrative capacity for administering such measures.
The rapid growth of cybercurrency and the availability of unregulated offshore financial centers enormously complicate international efforts to combat financial criminality. Last year the German government launched an effort similar to that of the Swiss to focus attention on ways to improve the implementation of arms embargoes and travel sanctions. Arms embargoes have great potential as a way of denying oppressive rulers the means for waging war or abusing their people. But while arms embargoes are frequently imposed, they are seldom enforced. Few nations have specific laws criminalizing the traffic in illegal arms, and the underworld of arms brokers and dealers is often impervious to international control.