Can UN arms embargoes in Africa be effective?

International Affairs

Volumn 83, Issue 6, 2007, Pages 1107-1121

  Vines, Alex ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 35548996345     PISSN: 00205850     EISSN: 14682346     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2346.2007.00676.x     Document Type: Article

References (53)

1. D. Cortright and G. Lopez, The sanctions decade: assessing UN strategies in the 1990s (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2000).
2. S. Myers, 'Russia says it opposes UN sanctions on Iran', New York Times, 26 Aug. 2006.
3. Assistant Foreign Minister Zhai Jun, cited in H. French, 'China seeks solution to Darfur crisis, International Herald Tribune, 24 January 2007.
4. L. Bondi, 'Arms embargoes: in name only', in D. Cortright and G. Lopez, eds, Smart sanctions: targeting economic statecraft (Lanham, MD: Rowan and Littlefield, 2002).
5. This article obliges member states to 'refrain from giving assistance to any state against which the United Nations is taking preventive or enforcement actions'.
6. The first sanctions committee, on Rhodesia, was created in 1968. Its task was to receive reports from governments, which had been sent a standard questionnaire for filing monthly returns, and to follow up allegations of violations from governments and, after 1973, from NGOs and individuals. After six months and three reminders, the committee published lists of non-respondents. In 1977 a second sanctions committee was set up to monitor the arms embargo against South Africa, but governments policed themselves and the committee's work was mainly restricted to debating whether to imposed additional measures, which was not acceptable to western members: it was dissolved in 1994.
7. Article 29 states that 'the Security Council may establish such subsidiary organs as it deems necessary for the performance of its functions'.
8. A. Vines, 'Monitoring UN sanctions in Africa: the role of panels of experts', in T. Findlay, ed., Verification Yearbook 2003 (London: Verification Research, Training and Information Centre, 2003).
9. Oxfam International, Amnesty International and International Action Network on Small Arms, 'UN amis embargoes: an overview of the last ten years', control arms briefing note (London: Amnesty International, 16 March 2006).
10. G. Lamb, Beyond 'shadow boxing' and 'lip service': the enforcement of arms embargoes in Africa, ISS Paper 135 (Pretoria: Institute for Security Studies, April 2007).
11. M. Brozoska, ed., Design and implementation of arms embargoes and travel and aviation related sanctions: results of the 'Bonn-Berlin process' (Bonn: Bonn International Center for Conversion, 2001);
12. P. Walleusteen et al., eds, Making targeted sanctions effective: guidelines fir the implementation of UN policy options (Stockholm: Elanders Gotab, 2003).
13. Arms Transfers Project of SIPRI and Special Programme on the Implementation of Targeted Sanctions, A new assessment of the impact of United Nations arms embargoes (Stockholm: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Nov. 2007).
14. S/2006/7951 para. 81.
15. S/2006/795.
16. W. Hoge, 'Sudan flying arms to Darfur, panel reports', New York Times, 18 April 2007.
17. Amnesty International, Sudan: arms continuing to fuel serious human rights violations in Darfur, AI Index, AFR 54/019/2007, 8 May 2007.
18. Although China has threatened to use its veto to block the UN Security Council from imposing sanctions against Khartoum over the Darfur conflict, it has never done so. Its strategy has been to dilute the language of resolutions and frequently to abstain from voting in eight out of the 22 UN Security Council resolutions concerning Sudan and Darfur since 2001.
19. Government of Sudan data, September 2007;
20. Small Arms Survey, 'Arms, oil and Darfur: the evolution of relations between China and Sudan', Sudan Issue Brief, no. 7, July 2007, p. 5.
21. 'Assistant Foreign Minister Zhai Jun holds a briefing for Chinese and foreign journalists on the Darfur issue of Sudan,' www.chinaembassy.org.in/eng/ zgbd/default.htm, accessed 1 Oct. 2007.
22. United Nations COMTRADE trade data for 2005; Russia has after China had the second highest number of abstentions over UN Security Council resolutions concerning Sudan and Darfur; six out of 22 resolutions since 2001.
23. M. Doxey, United Nations sanctions: trends and problems (Halifax, Nova Scotia: Centre for Foreign Policy Studies, Dalhousie University, 2007), p. 42.
24. Monrovia lifted its diamond export moratorium on 28 July 2007 and a first package of rough diamonds worth US$220,000 was officially exported in early September 2007.
25. The UN arms embargo imposed on Liberia on 22 December 2003 was also modified by Security Council resolution 1683 of 13 June 2006. It permits imports of weapons and ammunition for training purposes and for use by members of the Liberian government, police and security forces on condition that the Sanctions Committee approves them in advance on a case-by-case basis; that they are clearly marked, and that the UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) regularly inspects them.
26. G. Lopez and D. Cortright, 'Containing Iraq: sanctions worked', Foreign Affairs 83: 4, July/Aug. 2004.
27. All Party Parliamentary Group on the Great Lakes Region of Africa, Arms flows in eastern DR Congo (London: All Party Parliamentary Group on the Great Lakes Region of Africa, Dec. 2004). This report provided an important alternative independent source of information for members of the Security Council who had become frustrated at the variable output of a dysfunctional expert group (author's interviews with members of the DRC sanctions committee, New York, March 2005).
28. See www.un.org/doc/sc/committees/index.shtml, accessed 30 Sept. 2007.
29. H. Anders and A. Vines, 'Sanctions and enforcement', in UNIDIR et al., eds, Developing a mechanism to prevent illicit brokering in small arms and light weapons: scope and implications (Geneva: United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, 2006).
30. Interviews with Baba Jobe, Banjul, Sept. 2002; government official, Banjul, 1 June 2006.
31. Interview with Agim de Bruycker, who headed the investigation for federal police, 14 July 2006.
32. Interview with Aziz Nassour, Beirut, 21 June 2006.
33. Ibid.
34. Interview with Agim de Bruycker.
35. See UN Panel of Experts on Liberia reports, S/2003/498 ; S/2003/937.
36. According to the South Eastern and Eastern Europe Clearing House for the Control of Small Arms and Light Weapons (SEESAC), a UN-backed research centre based in Belgrade, Tomislav Damjanovic, a shipping agent involved in many arms deals, assisted with the arrangements for this deal. See, H. Griffiths and A. Wilkinson, Guns, planes and ships: identification and disruption of clandestine arms transfers (Belgrade: SEESAC, Aug. 2007).
37. Interviews with Belgrade police, 6 Jan. 2004; Liberia Group expert Damian Callamard, Monrovia, 12 May 2006.
38. N. Wood, 'For a Balkan shipping agent, wars are opportunities', International Herald Tribune, 2 Oct. 2007;
39. D. Farah and S. Braun, Merchant of death: money, guns and planes and the man who makes war possible (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley, 2007).
40. E. Berman, 'Illicit trafficking of small arms in Africa: increasingly a home-grown problem', presentation given at the GTZ-OECD-UNECA Expert Consultation of the Africa Partnership Forum Support Unit, 14 March 2007, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
41. Small Arms Survey, Small Arms Survey 2007: guns and the city (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).
42. Author was in Maputo on 22 March 2007 and was a witness to these events.
43. Author investigated this in Guinea and Liberia in 2001 and 2002.
44. S/2006/735, 5 Oct. 2006, p. 17.
45. M. Plaut, 'UN troops "traded gold for guns'", BBC News, 23 May 2007, news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/ africa/6681457.stm, accessed 30 Sept. 2007; 'Guns for gold in DRC, meeting summary, Chatham House, July 2007, www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/papers/view/-Ad/518/, accessed 30 Sept. 2007.
46. The UN Office of Internal Oversight Services has conducted an investigation into these allegations and has sent a report to the Pakistani Permanent Mission for action. The episode has resulted in one Pakistani officer being repatriated from MONUC on disciplinary grounds. Letter from Jean-Marie Guehenno, UN Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations to Messrs Roth and Crawshaw, Human Rights Watch, 1 Aug. 2007.
47. These were Kenya, United Republic of Tanzania, Rwanda, Uganda, Zaire, Ethiopia and Cameroon.
48. P. Addo, 'Cross-border criminal activities in West Africa: options for effective responses', KAIPTC occasional paper 12, May 2006.
49. A. Vines, 'Combating light weapons proliferation in West Africa', International Affairs 81: 2, March 2005, pp. 341-60;
50. A. Ayissi and I. Sall, eds, Combating the proliferation of small arms and light weapons in West Africa (Geneva: United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, 2005).
51. Interview with Col. Mahamme Touré, Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace and Security, ECOWAS, Oporto, 28 Sept. 2007.
52. R. Stohl and R. Myerscough, 'Sub-Saharan small arms: the damage continues', Current History, May 2007.
53. On 2 September 2007, after a break of eleven years, China announced that it would resume providing data to the UN registry 'for the latest fiscal year'.