Natural Resources and Violent Conflict - WaterWiki.net

getting it done 235The argument that “sanctions work,” however, is refuted by RobertPape (1997), who finds only 5 percent effectiveness among the samesample. Pape argues that economic sanctions have not achieved majorforeign policy goals, because there was no cooperation among sanctioningstates and because modern nation-states are not “fragile”(Pape 1997, p. 106). A previous study by Knorr (1975), on a smallersample of sanctions imposed between 1811 and 1974, also finds thatsanctions were rarely effective. 12Examining 12 multilateral economic sanctions in the 1990s,Cortright and Lopez (2000) estimate that 36 percent were effectiveand blamed the failures on flaws in design, implementation, and enforcementrather than on the general principle of sanctions. In theirview, both comprehensive and targeted sanctions can be effective, aslong as member states are committed and effective in implementingand enforcing them strictly. However, they note that sanctions mustremain a tool of coercive persuasion that assists in negotiation andbargaining and not become a form of punishment. They argue thatcombining positive incentives and sanctions can improve complianceon the part of targeted groups or states.Looking at UN sanctions during the 1990s, Mack and Khan (2000)argue that sanctions have mostly failed to change the behavior of targets,but that they should not necessarily be considered as failures,especially in terms of stigmatizing and containing targets. In this perspective,sanctions can be effective as an instrument of policing andpunishment. The counterargument is that economic sanctions, includingtargeted ones, can further aggravate conflicts by criminalizing targetedbelligerents, making it more likely they will be less inclined tonegotiate politically (Kopp 1996). Mark Duffield suggests that wareconomies need to be seen in a different light and that “transbordernetworks associated with organized violence have stimulated enterpriseacross large tracts of the South” (Duffield 2002, p. 160). Regulatingthese war economies through sanctions also means privilegingsome operators over others, with the risk of creating a climate in whichcriminal syndicates thrive, while more legitimate businesses, large andsmall, suffer.The record of commodity sanctions in the 1990s is ambiguous. Since1990, out of the 10 conflicts in which UN sanctions or monitoringregimes targeting resource exports were used, eight were resolved. Butfor five of these, resolution was mostly an outcome of military intervention(Afghanistan, Angola, Haiti, Sierra Leone, former Yugoslavia).Of the others, only Libya is a possible success in terms of the limited goalof extraditing two suspected terrorists in the bombing of a UTA airliner.In the case of sanctions on the Khmer Rouge, the United Nations was no