Understanding global security - Peter Hough

ECONOMIC THREATS TO SECURITY
1990: 92–93). Cuba, however, has undoubtedly suffered from the continuation of US
sanctions in the last decade owing to the size and proximity of their foe and the fall
of their chief economic ally during the Cold War, the USSR.
In most cases the economic security of states and their peoples is only likely
to be threatened by global economic action, depriving them of any legitimate trading
partners. Economic sanctions were an option open to the League of Nations, for the
purpose of deterring aggression, but were only ever used in a limited and symbolic
manner owing to a lack of resolve among its member states. Fascist Italy’s invasion
of Abyssinia (Ethiopia) in 1935 prompted only meek measures which, crucially,
did not include an oil embargo. The League was hampered by the UK and France’s
reluctance to antagonize Italy too greatly through fear of war and by the fact that
many significant economic powers, such as the USA and Germany, were not members
and so not obliged to follow suit.
The collective imposition of economic sanctions originated in the 1960s under
the auspices of the UN Security Council, empowered by Article 41 of the UN Charter
to act against threats to international peace and security. The significance of Security
Council backed sanctions is that they become binding on all UN members, whether
they individually support the measure or not. Bearing in mind the limited operation
of collective security, UN sanctions represent the most significant example of global
supranational policy seen to date.
The success of UN economic sanctions as a means of conducting coercive
diplomacy is not easy to judge. As Table 4.3 illustrates, the use of economic sanctions
has increased greatly since the end of the Cold War but they are often controversial
and, some feel, counter-productive. Criticisms levelled at the use of comprehensive
economic sanctions include the following.
Table 4.3 Mandatory UN economic sanctions
Rhodesia1966–79
South Africa1977–94
Iraq 1990–
Yugoslavia
1991–95 (arms embargo applied to successor states on
break up)
Libya1992–
Fed. Rep. of Yugoslavia 1992–95
Somalia 1992–
Liberia1992
Haiti 1993–94
UNITA 1993
Rwanda
1994–96 (but arms embargo on Rwandan NGOs
remains)
Bosnian Serb Party 1994–96
Sudan 1996
Sierra Leone 1997
Afghanistan 2001
al-Qa’ida 2001
96