Trade Controls for Political Ends: Four Perspectives

The prevailing view among commentators (if not among policymakers) is that economic sanctions are a bad idea-bad economics, bad politics, bad law. Just a few minutes in the library turns up articles and books such as Economic Sanctions: Obstruction or Instrument for World Trade?1 (and you can guess the answer); Ineffectiveness of Economic Sanctions: Same Song, Same Refrain?;2 Feeling Good or Doing Good with Sanctions;3 Altering U.S. Sanctions Policy;4 and so on. Most of the critique of economic sanctions has been directed at so-called "unilateral sanctions," which are sanctions imposed (alone or with the usual allies) by the United States. The fact that the UN Security Council has instituted a plethora of economic sanctions5 since the automatic Soviet veto melted away in 1991, has taken away one of the arguments against imposition of sanctions, but has generally not converted the opponents of sanctions to supporters of non-forcible measures of international diplomacy.6 I. WAR AND SANCTIONS AS ALTERNATIVES: THE CASE OF IRAQ Within a week of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, the UN Security Council adopted a program of mandatory economic sanctions designed to induce Iraq to withdraw from what it called its 19th Province.7 The sanctions did not work, and war became the alternative accepted by the international community.8 At the end of that war, with Saddam Hussein still in power, the Security Council adopted a massive program of sanctions designed to prevent the rearming of Iraq.9 For the next twelve years these sanctions remained in place, with the only major modification involving the Oil for Food Program, instituted in 1995.10 Russia and France repeatedly urged termination or substantial easing of the sanctions, on the ground that they had failed to bring down the government of Saddam Hussein but had caused massive damage to the civilian population of Iraq. For its part the United States insisted on maintaining the sanctions substantially intact, blaming the Iraqi regime for the suffering of the population.11 As the United States became disenchanted with sanctions in 2002-03, France, Russia, and Germany suddenly favored continuation of sanctions as an alternative to war. As everyone knows, war trumped. Does the Iraq story confirm and validate the principal justification for economic sanctions-an alternative to war on the one hand, "business as usual" on the other? In round I, the sanctions unanimously agreed to by the Security Council worked, in the sense that they kept the international community focused on the invasion of Kuwait. Consider what would have happened if the Security Council had gone no further than its first resolution of August 2, 1990, merely "condemning" the invasion and calling upon Iraq and Kuwait to begin "intensive negotiations for the resolution of their differences."12 But the sanctions did not advance the objective of withdrawal of Iraqi troops from Kuwait, and war became the alternative generally accepted by the international community. In Round II, sanctions worked in the sense that they were a substitute for a war that some, but not all of the international community, thought should have been taken to the end in the spring of 1991. Again consider what would have happened if the Security Council had limited itself in March 1991 to accepting the cessation of hostilities13 and in April 1991 to a demand that Iraq and Kuwait respect the inviolability of the international boundary between them.14 There were in fact only two options: erect a massive regime of sanctions, or resume the war. The first option lasted twelve years, the second about six weeks. As of this writing, it is too early to reach a definite judgment on the outcome. I submit, however, that the Iraq case illustrates the use of force and the use of economic sanctions as alternatives. In situations that one really cares about, it is unpersuasive to be opposed both to the use of force and to economic sanctions. …