by Ghislaine Murango* and Michael Woods
Having addressed sanctions in the business immigration context, we will examine the question of the overall effectiveness of sanctions. To re-cap, economic sanctions are used by states as instruments of foreign and trade policy a response to actions and or measures by another state that poses real or potential threats to international security, or which relate to humanitarian concerns or other trade related violations. Scholars and policymakers, sometimes describe sanctions as a preferable alternative to military action as a means to influence a state’s action. On the other hand, it has also been argued that the overall effects of sanctions can be as or more destructive than military action with innocent civilians as principal casualties. Before reviewing the issue of the overall effectiveness of sanctions, here is summary of types of sanction related measures:
- The arms embargo[1] : This is a counteractive measure often imposed in response to an ongoing civil war, illegal coup, war crimes, and other serious humanitarian crises. Arms embargo measures aim to block the import of arms and other strategic military materials by the targeted country. One of the problems encountered in such cases is the sometimes exponential growth in illegal arms which can seriously undermine the embargo and its objectives.
- Asset freeze: This measure aims to block specified individuals or entities to from access to property or assets that they hold in the country putting the freeze in place. The measures usually prohibit any persons in the country putting the measures in place from dealing in any property held by or on behalf of the individual or the entity targeted by the asset freeze – often to the detriment of that business or person.
- Export/import restrictions: The government imposing the restrictions impedes the economy of a specific sector by prohibiting the buying, selling or shipping of identified goods to or from the targeted state. These restrictions often target specific sectors.
- Financial prohibitions: These measures prohibit listed entities and/or person in a targeted state from conducting financial transactions with persons in the implementing country. They often include specific types of financial transactions and/or financial transactions with specified or “listed” individuals or organizations. Financial prohibitions can create important problems for those who are not specially intended as targets. For example, in our previous blog post on sanctions and immigration, we reviewed how wide ranging financial prohibitions can slow down or stop an otherwise successful immigration application process.
- Technical assistance prohibitions: These measures are aimed at preventing a state that is already sanctioned subject to an arms embargo or an export ban from obtaining services and information related to the banned products. The sanction prohibits providing technical data, training or other technical assistance to the targeted state.
What About Effectiveness?
In our next post we will examine the on-going debate on the effectiveness of economic sanctions – an important questions as over the last 25 years there has been a significant growth in the use of economic sanctions as a foreign policy instrument.
[1] Canada currently applies an arms and related materials embargo on 15 states (Burma, Central African Republic, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Liberia, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Zimbabwe) and 56 terrorist entities (see public safety website for the complete list: http://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/cnt/ntnl-scrt/cntr-trrrsm/lstd-ntts/crrnt-lstd-ntts-eng.aspx)
*Ghislaine Murango is a second year law student at the University of Ottawa (Civil Law Faculty) and is serving as an intern with Woods, LaFortune LLP as part of the University’s program designed to give student an opportunity to gain experience working with law firms.
