| dc.description.abstract | Are Comprehensive Sanctions Just? Just War Principles and Economic Sanctions. The Case of FR Yugoslavia.
Comprehensive economic sanctions have been a frequently used device of coercive diplomacy after the Cold War. The UN instituted only two comprehensive sanctions regimes in the period from 1945 to 1990. After 1990, the UN has instituted seven comprehensive sanctions regimes. While we face an unprecedented increase in the use of this coercive instrument, analysis of comprehensive sanctions has been missing. The international news media has claimed that comprehensive sanctions hurt the innocent, while little research has been done to test such claims. This study uses just war principles to judge the moral legitimacy of comprehensive sanctions. The just war principles are applied to a case study of a comprehensive sanctions episode, namely the UN sanctions against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. These sanctions were instituted 30 May 1992, through UN Security Council resolution 757. The goals behind the sanctions were to stop the Belgrade regime's involvement in the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and coerce it to contribute to end the war in that former Yugoslav republic.
The just war tradition consists of two distinct categories, jus ad bellum and jus in bello. The first addresses questions about what makes it right to go to war. The second concerns restrictions which must be met with respect to a legitimate conduct of war. In the study, the jus ad bellum principles are used to determine circumstances under which it is just to introduce sanctions. The jus in bello principles are used to determine what effects of sanctions which can and cannot be morally justified. In the case study, the just war principles are used to assess the moral legitimacy of the UN comprehensive sanctions against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
The jus ad bellum principles led us to conclude that it was just to introduce sanctions against FR Yugoslavia. However, sanctions should have been instituted against Croatia as well. The reason for this is that Croatia was also an aggressor in Bosnia. Croatia had a substantial number of troops in Bosnia, and the Croatian regime supported the Bosnian Croats in their armed struggle. Furthermore, selective implementation of UN sanctions against rump-Yugoslavia created an image of bias against the Serbs. UN sanctions against Croatia could have created incentives for the Tudjman regime to contribute to a peaceful conflict solution in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
The jus in bello principles led us to conclude that the effects of the sanctions against FR Yugoslavia were unjust. Several matters made us draw this conclusion. Firstly, the sanctions most severely hurt innocent people such as chronically ill, the elderly, pregnant women, children, and the refugees. Secondly, a substantial increase in the level of poverty can be traced to the sanctions. Thirdly, the effects of the sanctions will last for a long time, just how long is at this moment uncertain. Fourthly, the sanctions led to a number of counter-intentional effects, while failing to achieve their stated goals. It was the Dayton Peace Agreement which led to an end to the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and the lifting of most of the sanctions against FR Yugoslavia. All evidence point in the direction that it was the Security Council s sanctioned NATO-intervention in the summer and fall of 1995 which led to the signing of the Dayton Peace Agreement in Dayton, Ohio, in November 1995. This peace agreement was forged in spite of the sanctions, and not because of them.
Comprehensive sanctions with ambitious goals cannot be expected to lead to goal achievement. Furthermore, the institution of comprehensive sanctions is in urgent need of reform, if it is to become an effective and morally legitimate instrument of coercive diplomacy. This means that sanctions cannot be comprehensive, because it is their comprehensive, and consequently all-inclusive character which is one of the principal drawbacks of comprehensive sanctions. The case study of FR Yugoslavia showed that comprehensive sanctions are a highly inefficient and unjust instrument of coercive diplomacy. Comprehensive sanctions reinforce the tensions that they are intended to solve. Sanctions should hit the target regime, and not the innocent bystanders. Consequently, comprehensive sanctions ought to be abolished, and be replaced with targeted sanctions. | nor |