Economic sanctions have taken on new importance in modern international relations. Increasingly since World War II, international bodies have sought to influence countries' behavior by means of peace-keeping forces, Amnesty International-type campaigns, and economic sanctions in the form of boycotts and trade embargoes. They are an attempt to answer a centuries-old question: How can the international community influence a country's behavior without resorting to war?
Sanctions are brought to bear when a country clearly violates the principles, stated or unstated, by which the nations of the world generally live. Those who impose the sanctions say, in effect, We cannot continue in this specific economic relationship with you as long as you ignore accepted norms of behavior.
South Africa offers the clearest and most successful example of such pressure. Apartheid violates the most elemental notion of governance by, for, and of the people. The United Nations imposed economic sanctions against the white-dominated South African government, and these have helped the movement for change there.
Sanctions presuppose the suspension of aid--obviously, nations do not continue assistance to a country while imposing sanctions. If the sanctions produce unacceptable levels of suffering for innocent people in the offending country, the option remains to bypass the government and re-establish humanitarian aid through international organizations such as the Red Cross. In such cases sanctions remain in force but people's basic needs are met.
The decision to resort to this form of coercion is a serious one--sanctions generally affect the most vulnerable people--and two considerations are key: how prepared are the people to suffer the consequences, and who speaks for the people. In the case of South Africa, legitimate black leaders insisted that their people were prepared to absorb the pain that U.N. sanctions caused in order to achieve freedom.
HOW MUCH PRESSURE should be exercised? The international community has a variety of means to influence a country, from restricting tourism to halting investment, from freezing assets to prohibiting all trade with the country. Milder sanctions are preferable to harsher ones, given the inevitable suffering caused as the screws are tightened.
The motivation for sanctions requires examination. Current embargoes and boycotts against Iraq allegedly are aimed at removing Saddam Hussein from power--but withholding medicine and foodstuffs from Iraqi children, already terribly harmed by Desert Storm, ranks as a gross injustice.
The effectiveness of current sanctions against Haiti is undermined by the less-than-serious implementation on the part of several countries, particularly the United States, and the lack of concurrence by European countries. The poor there are suffering while Haiti's elites continue to enjoy their accustomed lifestyle. In this regard some have called for a naval blockade of Haiti to ensure European compliance with the OAS sanctions. But a blockade constitutes an act of war, not a sanction. It is tantamount to landing troops on foreign soil, something which the economic measures are meant to forestall in the first place. Pressure must be maintained until Haiti returns to democracy, but by means short of a blockade.
Despite all the questions and reservations around the imposition of sanctions, the increasing use of them reflects an effort on the part of the international community to find nonviolent ways to censure regimes that violate accepted norms of behavior. Perhaps the bloody 20th century has finally taught us that war is not the answer to conflict; that humanity must grope toward better ways of settling disputes between and within nations.
Economic sanctions remain a sometimes-flawed instrument, but they offer a qualitatively better avenue than armed conflict for achieving a measure of genuine world order.
Joe Nangle, OFM, was outreach director of Sojourners when this article appeared.
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