Irrelevant or malevolent? Un arms embargoes in civil wars

Review of International Studies

Volumn 31, Issue 4, 2005, Pages 645-664

  Tierney, Dominic ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 26444473528     PISSN: 02602105     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0260210505006674     Document Type: Review

References (138)

1. William J. Durch, Constructing Regional Security: The Role of Arms Transfers, Arms Control, and Reassurance (New York: Palgrave, 2000), p. 167.
2. David Cortright and George A. Lopez, The Sanctions Decade: Assessing UN Strategies in the 1990s (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2000), pp. 210, 242.
3. See Cortright and Lopez, The Sanctions Decade, ch. 10;
4. David Cortright and George A. Lopez, Sanctions and the Search for Security: Challenges to UN Action (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2002);
5. Loretta Bondi, 'Arms Embargoes: In Name Only?',
6. and Michael Brzoska, 'Putting More Teeth in UN Arms Embargoes',
7. both in David Cortright and George A. Lopez, Smart Sanctions: Targeting Economic Statecraft (New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2002), pp. 109-43;
8. W. Andy Knight, 'Improving the Effectiveness of UN Arms Embargoes', in Richard M. Price and Mark W. Zacher (eds.), The United Nations and Global Security (New York: Macmillan, 2004), pp. 39-55;
9. Arne Tostensen and Beate Bull, 'Are Smart Sanctions Feasible?', World Politics, 54 (2002);
10. Joanna Spear, 'Arms Limitations, Confidence-Building Measures, and Internal Conflict', in Michael Brown (ed.), The International Dimensions of Internal Conflict (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1996). The discussion of arms embargoes tends to be a sub-field of either economic sanctions, or efforts to control the international arms trade.
11. David A. Baldwin, Economic Statecraft (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985);
12. Lisa L. Martin, Coercive Cooperation; Explaining Multilateral Economic Sanctions (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992);
13. Robert A. Pape, 'Why Economic Sanctions Do Not Work', International Security, 22 (1997);
14. Kimberly Ann Elliot, 'The Sanctions Glass: Half Full, or Completely Empty?', International Security, 23 (1998).
15. For a useful discussion, see Michael Brown, 'Introduction', in The International Dimensions of Internal Conflict, pp. 1-29;
16. Harry Eckstein, 'Introduction: Towards the Theoretical Study of Internal War', in Harry Eckstein (ed.), Internal War (New York: Free Press, 1994), pp. 1-32.
17. German law, for example, forbids the sale of weapons to areas of conflict. Durch, Constructing Regional Security, p. 10.
18. There is an element of partiality in the case of the Liberian embargo. The arms embargo is impartial in relation to Liberians but allows arms sales to ECOWAS troops.
19. 'Internal conflict is the most pervasive form of armed conflict in the international system today'. Michael E. Brown, 'Introduction', in Brown (ed.), The International Dimensions of Internal Conflict, p. 3;
20. Roy Licklider, 'How Civil Wars End: Questions and Methods', in Roy Licklider (ed.), Stopping the Killing: How Civil Wars End (New York: New York University Press, 1993), pp. 5-8.
21. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, An Agenda for Peace: Preventive Diplomacy, Peacemaking and Peace-Keeping (New York: United Nations, 1992).
22. 'Annual Report of the Secretary-General on the Work of the Organization' (1997), A/52/1;
23. Haass, Economic Sanctions and American Diplomacy, p. 212;
24. Cortright and Lopez, The Sanctions Decade, pp. 23-6, ch. 3.
25. David Hendrickson, 'The Democratic Crusade: Intervention, Economic Sanctions and Engagement', World Policy Journal, 11 (1994/1995), pp. 22-6.
26. Richard N. Haass, Economic Sanctions and American Diplomacy (Washington, DC: Council on Foreign Relations, 1998), p. 202;
27. Thomas Weiss, Military-Civilian Interactions: Intervening in Humanitarian Crises (Lanham, NY: Rowman and Littlefield, 1999), p. 111.
28. Cortright and Lopez, The Sanctions Decade, p. 4.
29. Other smart sanctions include prohibitions on financial transactions, travel, and the trading of specific commodities such as diamonds.
30. New York Times, 27 August 2000.
31. UN Security Council Resolutions 864 (1993), 1132 (1997) and 1171 (1998);
32. Cortright and Lopez, The Sanctions Decade, chs 8 and 9.
33. UN Security Council Resolution 1011.
34. UN Security Council Resolution 1333.
35. UN Security Council Resolution 1493.
36. UN Security Council Resolution 713 (1991) embargoing arms to Yugoslavia, was designed 'for the purposes of establishing peace and stability in Yugoslavia', and sought to encourage a peaceful and negotiated settlement.
37. Resolution 733 (1993) had the declared purpose of establishing peace and stability in Somalia, but it did not set any specific objectives for the parties in the conflict.
38. Resolution 788 (1992) applied an embargo to Liberia, in an effort to uphold international peace and security in West Africa, and to improve the humanitarian situation.
39. Resolution 918 (1994) demanded that all parties to the Rwandan conflict 'immediately cease hostilities, agree to a cease-fire, and bring an end to the mindless violence and carnage engulfing Rwanda'.
40. Resolution 1160 (1998) was aimed at 'fostering peace and stability in Kosovo', by ending excessive repression by Serb forces and terrorism by the Kosovo Liberation Army.
41. Susan L. Woodward, Balkan Tragedy: Chaos and Dissolution after the Cold War (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1995), p. 290.
42. See UN Security Council Resolution 841, 873, 875;
43. Cortright and Lopez, The Sanctions Decade, pp. 88-9, 171-2.
44. For a statistical approach, see Gary C. Hufbauer, Jeffrey J. Schott, and Kimberly Ann Elliott, Economic Sanctions Reconsidered: History and Current Policy, 2nd edn. (Washington, DC: Institute for International Economics, 1990).
45. For a case study approach, see Cortright and Lopez, The Sanctions Decade.
46. UN Security Council Resolutions 1425 (2002) and 1474 (2003).
47. UN Security Council, Final Report of the International Commission of Inquiry (Rwanda) (New York: United Nations, 1998).
48. UN Security Council Resolution 1295. For a detailed account of the failure to enforce the arms embargo on Angola,
49. see 'Angola Unravels: The Rise and Fall of the Lusaka Peace Process' (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1999).
50. See also Cortright and Lopez, The Sanctions Decade, ch. 8.
51. UN Security Council, 'Letter dated 26 February 1999 from the Chairman of the Security Council Committee Established Pursuant to Security Council Resolution 1160 (1998) Addressed to the President of the Security Council', S/1999/216, 4 March 1999.
52. Stephen D. Goose and Frank Smyth, 'Arming Genocide in Rwanda', Foreign Affairs, 73 (1994), pp. 86-96;
53. Lora Lumpe (ed.), Running Guns: The Global Black Market in Small Arms (London: Zed Books, 2000).
54. Spear, 'Arms Limitations, Confidence-Building Measures, and Internal Conflict', pp. 382-4.
55. Aaron Karp, 'The Rise of the Black and Gray Markets', Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 535 (September 1994), pp. 174-89.
56. Gary Hufbauer and Barbara Oegg, 'Targeted Sanctions: A Policy Alternative?' (Washington, DC: Institute for International Economics, 2000);
57. Cortright and Lopez, The Sanctions Decade, p. 151.
58. Spear, 'Arms Limitations, Confidence-Building Measures, and Internal Conflict', p. 392.
59. Arms Limitations, Confidence-building Measures, and Internal Conflict, Ibid., pp. 390-1;
60. R.T. Naylor, Economic Warfare: Sanctions, Embargo Busting, and their Human Cost (Boston, MA: Northeastern University Press, 1999), pp. 156, 166.
61. Cortright and Lopez, The Sanctions Decade, p. 158.
62. 'UN Report, in response to Security Council Resolution 1013', 7 September 1995, pp. 18-19;
63. 'Interim Report of the International Commission of Inquiry (Rwanda)', S/1998/777, 19 August 1998.
64. Stephen John Stedman, 'The Former Yugoslavia', in Haass, Economic Sanctions and American Diplomacy, p. 185;
65. Spear, 'Arms Limitations, Confidence-Building Measures, and Internal Conflict', p. 384;
66. Bondi, 'Arms Embargoes: In Name Only?', p. 112.
67. 'US Aware of Iranian Arms to Bosnia?', Washington Post, 14 April 1995;
68. Aaron Karp, 'Arming Ethnic Conflict', Arms Control Today, 23 (1993), pp. 8-13.
69. Bondi, 'Arms Embargoes: In Name Only?', p. 112. See also the UK Parliament's February 1999 Foreign Affairs Select Committee report into the Sandline affair.
70. United Nations Security Council, Statement by the President of the Security Council, S/PRST/1999/1, 7 January 1999.
71. Cortright and Lopez, The Sanctions Decade, p. 44.
72. Julia Devin and Jaleh Dashti-Gibson, 'Sanctions in the Former Yugoslavia', in Thomas G. Weiss, David Cortright, George A. Lopez, and Larry Minear (eds.), Political Gain and Civilian Pain: Humanitarian Impacts of Economic Sanctions (New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 1997);
73. Cortright and Lopez, The Sanctions Decade, pp. 5, 9. For Security Council concerns about violations of the Yugoslav embargo see resolutions 787 (1992) and 820 (1993).
74. Bondi, 'Arms Embargoes: In Name Only?', pp. 114-15;
75. Michael Brzoska, 'Putting More Teeth in UN Arms Embargoes', pp. 133-9;
76. Cortright and Lopez, The Sanctions Decade, p. 190.
77. Figures implicated included the presidents of at least two African countries, Togo and Burkina Faso, the government of Bulgaria, the world's largest diamond exchange in Antwerp, Belgium, together with officials and individuals in Congo-Kinshasa, Congo-Brazzaville, Gabon, the Ivory Coast, Rwanda and South Africa. 'Final Report of the UN Panel of Experts on Violations of Security Council Sanctions Against Unita', S/2000/203 (10 March 2000);
78. Lora Lumpe, 'A 'New' Approach to the Small Arms Trade', Arms Control Today, January/February 2001, pp. 12-15;
79. Emanuela-Chiara Gillard, 'What's Legal? What's Illegal?', in Lumpe (ed.), Running Guns, pp. 34-5;
80. Cortright and Lopez, The Sanctions Decade, pp. 160-2.
81. Lumpe, 'A 'New' Approach to the Small Arms Trade', pp. 12-15.
82. UN Security Council, Supplementary Report, S/2001/966;
83. Cortright and Lopez, Sanctions and the Search for Security, pp. 61-74.
84. Haass, Economic Sanctions and American Diplomacy, p. 197.
85. Kim Richard Nossal, 'Liberal Democratic Regimes, International Sanctions, and Global Governance', in Vayrynen (ed.), Globalization and Global Governance, pp. 127-49.
86. Paul Wilson, 'Somali Guerrilla Scoffs at UN Arms Embargo', Toronto Star, 26 January 1992;
87. Cortright and Lopez, The Sanctions Decade, chs 8-10.
88. Cortright and Lopez, The Sanctions Decade, p. 65.
89. Cortright and Lopez, Sanctions and the Search for Security, pp. 70-1.
90. Cortright and Lopez, Sanctions and the Search for Security, pp. 13-15, 86-7.
91. See the Human Rights Watch report, 'Weapons Sanctions, Military Supplies, and Human Suffering: Illegal Arms Flows to Liberia and the June-July 2003 Shelling of Monrovia', available on the Human Rights Watch website. For further details of Liberian involvement in shipments of weapons to Sierra Leone see Security Council,
92. Report of the Panel of Experts Appointed Pursuant to Security Council Resolution 1306 (2000), para. 19, in Relation to Sierra Leone, S/2000/1195, 15 December 2000.
93. 'Letter dated 25 March 2003 from the Chairman of the 751 Sanctions Committee addressed to the President of the Security Council, transmitting the first report of the Panel of Experts on Somalia', S/2003/223.
94. Cortright and Lopez, The Sanctions Decade, p. 65.
95. Jim Hoagland, 'The Sanctions Bromide', Washington Post, 12 November 1993.
96. Woodward, 'The Use of Sanctions in Former Yugoslavia', in Cortright and Lopez (eds.), Economic Sanctions, p. 144.
97. For details of the underground trade in weapons in the former Yugoslavia, Somalia and Rwanda, see Michael T. Klare, 'The Subterranean Arms Trade: Black Market Sales, Covert Operations and Ethnic Warfare', in Andrew J. Pierre (ed.), Cascade of Arms: Managing Conventional Weapons Proliferation (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1997), pp. 45-6;
98. Cortright and Lopez, The Sanctions Decade, p. 75.
99. 'The Economic Consequences of Sanctions on the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and its Neighbours', Informal Report, to the International Conference on the Former Yugoslavia, Brussels (1993), pp. 12-13.
100. Tim Judah, The Serbs: History, Myth and the Destruction of Yugoslavia (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1997), pp. 255-6.
101. Naylor, Economic Warfare, p. 363.
102. Devin and Dashti-Gibson, 'Sanctions in the Former Yugoslavia', p. 158.
103. John Stuart Mill, 'A Few Words on Non-Intervention', Fraser's Magazine, December 1859.
104. 'UN Bars Weapons Sales to Yugoslavia', New York Times, 26 September 1991.
105. Reneo Lukic and Allen Lynch, Europe from the Balkans to the Urals: The Disintegration of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union (New York: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute and Oxford University Press, 1996), p. 246;
106. Naylor, Economic Warfare, p. 338.
107. Richard Betts, 'The Delusion of Impartial Intervention', Foreign. Affairs, 73 (1994), pp. 20-34.
108. Without Belgrade's support for the arms embargo, China would have vetoed the provision. Simon Chesterman, Just War or Just Peace? Humanitarian Intervention and International Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 133.
109. Wayne Bert, The Reluctant Superpower: United States' Policy in Bosnia, 1991-95 (London: Macmillan, 1997), p. 182.
110. Donald Daniel, Brad C. Hayes, Chantal de Jonge Oudraat, Coercive Inducement and the Containment of International Crises (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 1999), p. 205, fn. 40;
111. Bert, The Reluctant Superpower, p. 273, fn. 20.
112. In November 1994 President Clinton announced that the United States would no longer enforce the embargo with respect to Bosnia. Durch, Constructing Regional Security, p. 166;
113. Naylor, Economic Warfare, pp. 346-50.
114. 'Bosnia: Only Postponing', The Economist, 1 October 1994, pp. 64-5.
115. Hugh Thomas, The Spanish Civil War (London: Penguin, 1977);
116. Michael Alpert, A New International History of the Spanish Civil War (London: Macmillan, 1994).
117. Lord Strabolgi, 'What Spain's War Means to Britain', Daily Herald, 10 August 1936;
118. Douglas Little, Malevolent Neutrality: The United States, Great Britain, and the Origins of the Spanish Civil War (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1985).
119. Amitzur Ilan, The Origin of the Arab-Israeli Arms Race: Arms, Embargo, Military Power and Decision in the 1948 Palestine War (New York: New York University Press, 1996), p. 226;
120. Itamar Rabinovich, 'Seven Wars and One Peace Treaty', in Alvin Z. Rubinstein (ed.), The Arab-Israeli Conflict: Perspectives, 2nd edn. (New York: Harper Collins, 1991), pp. 35-8;
121. Benny Morris, Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881-1999 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999), p. 218.
122. Cortright and Lopez, The Sanctions Decade, pp. 82-3
123. ; Michael Brzoska, 'Putting More Teeth in UN Arms Embargoes', p. 130.
124. Human Rights Watch, Afghanistan: Crisis of Impunity; The Role of Pakistan, Russia, and Iran, in Fueling the Civil War (July 2001), available on the Human Rights Watch website.
125. Damrosch, 'The Collective Enforcement of International Norms through Economic Sanctions', p. 297.
126. Spear, 'Arms Limitations, Confidence-Building Measures, and Internal Conflict', p. 393.
127. For international law and civil wars, see Antonio Cassese, International Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 66-9, 75-7, 98-9, 343-8.
128. Cassese, International Law, pp. 67-8.
129. Notable in these efforts has been the 'Bonn-Berlin process'. In 1999, over 60 experts from 21 countries met for a three-day conference organised by the Bonn International Center for Conversion (BICC), to examine the problems of monitoring and implementing embargoes. This was followed by the 'Stockholm process', which looked at issues of implementation. See 〈www. smartsanctions.se〉.
130. Sverre Lodgaard, 'Small Arms and Internal Conflicts', in Dimitris Bourantonis and Marios Evriviades (eds.), A United Nations For the Twenty-First Century (Boston, MA: Kluwer Law International, 1996), pp. 259-70.
131. Bulgaria was the source for many of the weapons that reached UN1TA rebels in Angola. Human Rights Watch, World Report 2001, p. 159.
132. Making embargo violations a criminal offence would be pursuant to Article 25 of the UN Charter, which obliges states to take the necessary means to implement, apply and enforce an embargo internally so that it is operative against individuals and companies within their jurisdiction. Such acts were specifically urged by the UN Secretary-General in 1998, as well as being encouraged, but not required, by the Security Council in Resolution 1196 (September 1998).
133. Report of the Secretary General to the General Assembly Security Council, S/1998/318;
134. Bondi, 'Arms Embargoes: In Name Only?' p. 113;
135. Michael Brzoska (ed.) Design and Implementation of the Arms Embargoes and Travel and Aviation Related Sanctions: Results of the 'Bonn-Berlin Process' (Bonn: Bonn International Center for Conversion, 2001).
136. Human Rights Watch, World Report 2001, p. 158;
137. Bondi, 'Arms Embargoes: In Name Only?', pp. 117-19.
138. Michael Brzoska, 'Putting More Teeth in UN Arms Embargoes', p. 131.