Jack T. Patterson
The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) has both supported and opposed the implementation of sanctions, at times with clear strength of conviction and, at other times, with doubts and apprehensions. AFSC supported economic and cultural sanctions against apartheid in South Africa since 1976. It supported the prewar sanctions against Iraq after it invaded Kuwait, but has opposed their continuation since the end of the war. It supports sanctions against the former Yugoslavia and against the military government of Haiti. It has opposed sanctions against Vietnam, Cuba, Nicaragua, Libya, the former Soviet Union and other nations. Challenged by its experience with sanctions in the 1991 Gulf War and recognizing the seeming contradiction with the earlier positive experience in South Africa, the AFSC Board appointed a working group early in 1992 to clarify issues surrounding the use of economic sanctions. The product of the deliberations was the publication: Dollars or Bombs: The Search for Justice Through International Economic Sanctions.1 This chapter will highlight the moral issues addressed in that document and address some outstanding questions which require further clarification.
The AFSC's experience with Iraq before and after the Gulf War illustrates the many dilemmas the organization faces regarding both the efficacy and the morality of sanctions. The Service Committee favored sanctions following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait because it opposed the aggression and wanted to reverse its consequences, and because it wanted the world community to address, without force of arms, the problems that the invasion created. Simultaneously, along with many other peace, justice, and religious organizations and agencies of the UN, the AFSC sought to respond to the needs of the civilian population of Iraq, which was threatened both by sanctions and by war.
The committee quickly confronted contradictions that challenged its optimism about sanctions as a humane alternative to war. First, rather than functioning as an "alternative" to war, sanctions were used by the Bush administration and its supporters in the UN to co-opt the broad support that arose for sanctions. The White House argued that time had run out, sanctions had been tried and failed, and stronger military action was therefore required and justified. Economic sanctions and the UN Charter, rather than serving as the "threshold for peace," became a "trap door to war."
Second, the AFSC discovered that sanctions were being used somewhat "opportunistically," to quote Richard Falk.2 That is, the rationale for their use seemed to shift with changing circumstances that led to jarring contradictions. Why, for example, if economic sanctions were said to have failed in the lead-in to war, were they so important to continue at war's end? We began to see that economic sanctions are sometimes used (as in Iraq) as a stage or prelude to military action, and in others (as in the U.S. response to the situation in the former Yugoslavia) as an excuse to avoid taking stronger military or nonmilitary action—a justification, really, for inaction. Third, the APSC quickly observed in Iraq that economic sanctions were not a humane alternative to war, but had many of the same effects of increasing human suffering of the civilian population as smart bombs dropped from the air.
The AFSC came to the conclusion that if economic sanctions are to be rescued as an alternative to war and an acceptable vehicle for social change, it would be necessary to reconsider the extent and limits of their usefulness and our responsibility to insure, as best we can, that sanctions themselves do not become part of the problem. We lay more on economic sanctions than they can bear if we do not also create, develop, and support a broad mix of nonmilitary alternatives to accompany sanctions.
The working group reached several conclusions regarding the morality of using a sanctions regime. First, the decision on when and how to apply sanctions is always "contextual," although some conditions are "constant and absolute." This goes beyond mere questions of "efficacy." The AFSC has supported sanctions when it knew they would not work and opposed them at other times when it thought they would work but were unjustifiable in their human consequences. Whether supporting or opposing, we need to be as clear as possible about motives. The goals for sanctions that are most frequently cited are: (1) to punish, (2) to enforce compliance, (3) to withdraw either symbolically or in reality from evil, and (4) to assist or promote social change.
A lack of clarity (or honesty) about motives leads to co-option and the inevitable conflict among goals. The evaluation of success clearly depends on which motives guide the action. It was difficult, for example, to expect the Iraqi government and Saddam Hussein to engage in serious diplomatic efforts aimed at securing compliance with UN directives when those generating the momentum towards military confrontation wanted to see Baghdad's leadership overthrown. Economic sanctions became another element of the confrontation rather than an instrument for problem solving.
Second, the AFSC concluded that sanctions are coercive and impose real suffering. When enforcing a sanctions regime, the sanctioning body must insure that suffering is proportional to the severity of the situation. Sanctions themselves must not violate fundamental human rights. That is, while economic sanctions involve hardships, even suffering, they should not and cannot be justified when they threaten or lead to the loss of life itself. The principle of proportionality demands limits. A line must be drawn when deaths are knowingly inflicted. Extreme sanctions in the form of blockades on food, medicine, and the basic requirements for shelter and health must not only be exempted from sanctions, but assurance must be provided that basic needs are being met.
Third, close monitoring is needed to fulfill the moral obligation of maintaining proportionality and insuring that basic human survival needs are met, or at least not jeopardized by the sanctions themselves. There is an urgent need for those imposing and supporting sanctions regimes to carefully monitor their effects. Obviously, sanctioning parties have an interest in knowing whether and how sanctions are affecting the target country and achieving the goals set for them. As indicated in the AFSC Guidelines and also in the proposed SANCTIONS3 draft, developing a capacity for monitoring might rely on some existing agencies (e.g., UNICEF, WHO, World Food Program) and credible NGOs with experience evaluating human health needs. The AFSC also recognizes and acknowledges that adequate monitoring in some situations, especially in closed societies hostile to any outside intervention, may pose formidable obstacles. That challenge must be met with innovative approaches.
Guidelines for monitoring also must insure that monitors on the ground, where permitted, are not co-opted for political purposes. This is a particular problem where both political and humanitarian motives are involved in a contradictory tension. When the UN itself is the originating agency for sanctions, independent and credible alternative means of monitoring may be needed to avoid politicizing the situation. Monitoring needs to provide information about conditions in the target society that would allow sanctioning parties to maintain proportionality and avoid lethal consequences. Monitors must distinguish between levels of "hardship," "suffering," and "lethality." When the latter level is reached, one may say that sanctions themselves violate basic human rights enshrined in UN conventions. The members of the UN, as well as the UN itself, must be held to their own standards when acting against individual states, even when the target country is in gross violation of those same human rights.
Fourth, the credibility and authority of sanctioning parties must be established. The AFSC struggled with the question of what constitutes credible or legitimate authority for the imposition of sanctions. The committee was deeply suspicious and concerned that the current structure of the UN Security Council and the absence of real accountability by member states allows the Security Council to be manipulated by its most powerful members. This weakens the moral authority of the sanctions and of the UN itself, making it easier for others to justify evasion and noncompliance. In general, the AFSC has tended to oppose harsh sanctions unilaterally imposed by powerful nations on weaker ones, as in the cases of U.S. sanctions against Cuba, Nicaragua, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Libya. To be effective and genuinely claim moral authority, sanctioning parties should seek a consensus so broad and deep that no nation will want to break the sanctions. The credibility of sanctioning bodies can only be enhanced when they demonstrate that their actions enjoy broad and voluntary support. To this end, the AFSC wants to enhance the moral authority of sanctioning bodies by encouraging them to promote power sharing in decision making. Efforts by one or more superpowers to bribe or coerce support (as in the lead-in to the Gulf War) diminish the authority of both the sanctions and the sponsoring body.
Fifth, the AFSC working group easily concluded that an important moral criterion for supporting or opposing sanctions should be whether there is significant support for sanctions within the target country. This support should be evident especially among people with a record of support for human rights and democracy or among the victims of injustice. Such groups are inevitably among those who will be on the receiving end of sanctions and, often, are best positioned to help monitor the effects of sanctions on the most vulnerable. They are often powerless to affect or change their own government's policies, yet often bear the brunt of actions taken against that government. Determining the views of indigenous groups is also a moral responsibility of sanctioning parties because in some instances significant portions of the people are, in effect, "double-victims," i.e., victims of externally imposed sanctions and of sanctions imposed upon them by their own government. Meeting this criterion is easier to do when, as in South Africa, Haiti, or Burma, there were significant popular opposition movements with credible authority to speak on behalf of those who may be hurt most. The situation is more difficult and morally problematic when such movements either do not exist, or have been driven underground, or when they oppose the imposition of sanctions. Both Iraq and Serbia represent situations in which mixed signals are given by indigenous groups. Judgments must be made about how much weight to give to different voices. In the AFSC's experience this is easier when the organization has a history of work in an area in question, and more difficult when it lacks that experiential connection.
Sixth, the working group concluded that sanctioning nations must recognize the importance of universal human rights as a standard when judging the morality of a sanctions regime. The group recognized the importance and value of establishing global norms or "world order values" for evaluating whether and how to impose sanctions. It found these values encoded in the UN Charter, the Geneva Conventions and in the growing number of universal declarations on individual and group rights (such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention on the Rights of Children). Together, these documents embody widely accepted values and principles of international governance against which the decision to impose sanctions can be measured and justified. The AFSC recognized that established global norms on national sovereignty are eroding and that this invites interventions into what until recently would have been considered "internal affairs." However, this erosion is not occurring equally, with the North generally giving up much less sovereignty than the South. It is still difficult to imagine that sanctions, even if justified by universal law or conventions, could be imposed against the U.S., Europe, or Japan.
Seventh, working group members agreed that, unless one is considering completely blockading the entry of critical goods into a target country unable to supply its own essential needs, sanctions require time to work. But how long? Is there a need for proportionality here as well? If so, how would it work? In the Gulf War, Americans were told that sanctions had "failed" and that "time had run out" after six months. Gross human rights violations in Kuwait required immediate military action to reverse the aggressive invasion.
Policymakers and scholars often refuse to accept that sanctions usually take time for their effects to be felt and for targeted governments to take remedial actions to lift them. When extreme or complete sanctions are avoided, the time it will take for sanctions to become effective is further extended. In such situations, sanctions must be a coordinated part of a "package" of approaches designed to alleviate the grossest aspects of a situation while allowing time for sanctions to "bite," and for a political process to move forward toward resolution. John Paul Lederach of Eastern Mennonite College suggests that we need to "reconceptualize time." He argues that, as in Iraq, the argument that sanctions and negotiations "buy time" for tyrants is based on "a shaky assumption that war is a more direct and time-effective way of resolving conflict. In fact, the reverse is generally true. Wars, and their aftermath, inevitably take more time and resources than initially projected."5 While sanctions and negotiated approaches demand patience, they may be viewed as an investment in the future when they translate into "cost- and time-effective long-term solutions."5
Several issues related to sanctions are still in need of clarification and study. First, very little is known about the actual effects of sanctions. Most people have to acknowledge that their hopes for the effectiveness of sanctions as an alternative to war and agent for change have outdistanced the way sanctions actually work on the ground. Both the U.S. General Accounting Office's 1992 study of economic sanctions and the work of peace researcher George Tsebelis seriously question the effectiveness of sanctions to achieve many of the announced goals. The GAO study found sanctions more effective in achieving less ambitious goals like upholding international norms and deterring future objectionable actions than in making target countries change more serious behavior. They also found the threat of future sanctions more effective in changing behavior than currently imposed sanctions.6 George Tsebelis, in his study of 83 cases in the twentieth century, found a low rate of success [33 out of 83 (39.8 percent)]. The problem, he found, is that sanctioning countries are unable to select appropriate cases. They often use sanctions in situations in which the chance of success is low.7 Developing the capacity to evaluate the effectiveness of sanctions will be an important, even crucial, part of maintaining proportionality and avoiding lethal consequences. Thus far sanctions have been used as a blunt instrument. Scholars are far from discovering what combination of elements works to pinpoint pressure on those who have the power and responsibility to change policies.
Second, how can sanctioning bodies develop sanctions as an alternative to armed conflict and diminish their use as a precursor to war? To succeed in building a wall, a "firebreak," between the use of economic sanctions as an alternative to war and their use as an "amber light" on the path to war, scholars and policymakers will need to open themselves and others to the fullest possible range of strategies for utilizing sanctions in combination with other approaches. Sanctions may include not only economic components, but also noneconomic measures that bring pressure to bear or signal displeasure, including the suspension of diplomatic recognition, sporting and entertainment boycotts, and the banning of flights and communication. In addition to punitive sanctions, positive incentives need to be presented to strengthen the impact of negative sanctions and to offer an alternative through which to resolve problems. Based on his research of negative sanctions and positive inducements in U.S./Soviet relations, Louis Kriesberg of Syracuse University argues that inducements tend to elicit counterproposals with concessions from other negotiators, while threats generally yield counterproposals with no concessions.8 This carrot-and-stick approach, with the emphasis on carrots, was being demonstrated, or at least tested, by the U.S. and South Korea from 1992 to 1993 in efforts to persuade North Korea to end its suspected nuclear weapons program, to stop its missile sales abroad, and to move towards unification with the South.
To be moral and effective, sanctions need to be part of a coherent vision of a "rightly ordered world." However much one may wish that economic sanctions alone could end civil wars or reverse aggression, it is unlikely that they will do so. Their fullest effectiveness will likely come in combination with a larger package that contains either military threats or nonmilitary alternatives. The problem is that while military approaches often do not work, they exist, while most nonmilitary alternatives remain underused and underdeveloped. Boutros Boutros-Ghali drew particular attention to the latter prospect in his important report, An Agenda for Peace, which called for the strengthening of the UN's capacity for "preventive diplomacy" and "peacemaking" as well as "peacekeeping." Dr. John Burton, a pioneer in the field of analytical, problem-solving conflict resolution, argues:
It is time to shift our emphasis from conflict resolution to conflict prevention, i.e., to eliminating the sources and removing the causes of conflict, to promoting the conditions that eliminate an environment of conflict.9
Scholars arid peace activists have not focused on the prevention of undesired events. Instead they have largely emphasized remedial measures based on applying force, including sanctions, against symptoms of a problem rather than pursuing a process of prevention which could deal with the sources of the problem. Burton claims that there is no word for what he is talking about, so he uses the term "prevention" to make the point that the scholarly community needs to focus on causes, and not symptoms, of conflict.
All of this is to suggest a need to reserve some of the best energy for the work that precedes sanctions, for early intercession in conflicts while "option formation" is useful and possible. Indeed, early intercession in problem solving is a moral responsibility if one is to avoid some of the worst consequences of economic sanctions. When economic sanctions are placed in the context of "war prevention," the question can then be asked: Will economic sanctions help prevent war in this situation? Will they build support for war prevention policies and structures? Will they slow escalation until better options are developed? Fifty years after the ending of World War II and the beginning of the United Nations, the world community has a moral responsibility and a unique opportunity to make war impossible. Whether confronting war in Bosnia, illegitimate authority in Haiti, or violence in South Africa, scholars, activists, and world leaders need to identify and remove the elements that give rise to war and injustice.
1. Examples and conclusions about the moral issues presented here generally are based on Dollars or Bombs: The Search for Justice Through International Economic Sanctions (Philadelphia: American Friends Service Committee, 1993).
2. Ibid., pp. 13, 14.
3. Marc Hardy, "Sanctions Assessment of Non-Compliance and Cooperation Through Information and Observations from Non-Governmental Sources." Paper presented at the conference, Economic Sanctions and International Relations, Notre Dame, Ind., April 4, 1993.
4. John Paul Lederach, "From War to Peace," Mennonite Central Committee U.S. Peace Section Conciliation Quarterly Newsletter, Vol. 10, No. 1, Winter 1991, p. 15.
5. Ibid.
6. U.S. General Accounting Office, Economic Sanctions: Effectiveness as Tools of Foreign Policy, GAO/NSIAD-92-106, February 1992, p. 2.
7. George Tsebelis, "Are Sanctions Effective?: A Game Theoretical Analysis," The Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 34, No. 1, March 1990.
8. Louis Kreisberg, "Positive Inducements in U.S./Soviet Relations," The Syracuse University Program on the Analysis and Resolution of Conflict (PARC) Neiosletter, Vol. 2, No. 3, March 1988, p. 2.
9. John Burton, Conflict: Resolution and Provention (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1990), pp. 5-7.