PRESS CONFERENCE ON SANCTIONS BY SECURITY COUNCIL PRESIDENT

Press Briefing

PRESS CONFERENCE ON SANCTIONS BY SECURITY COUNCIL PRESIDENT

A legal framework was necessary to clarify ambiguity in terms of legal standards and norms in considering sanctions, the Foreign Minister of Canada and Security Council President, Lloyd Axworthy, told journalists at a Headquarters press conference this afternoon. George Lopez, Professor of Government at the University of Notre Dame, and David Cortright, President of the Fourth Freedom Forum, also spoke. The latter two are the authors of "The Sanctions Decade: Assessing United Nations Strategies in the 1990s", a project of the International Peace Academy, whose President, David Malone, was facilitator of the discussion.

Canada's interest in initiating and supporting the study derived from its focus on the "human security agenda", Mr. Axworthy said. The use of sanctions was one of the most important instruments the Security Council had at its disposal, but it faced increasing criticism because of the humanitarian impact of sanctions and the realization that they often failed to work. Before taking the issue up in the Council, it was important to carry out a sound analysis and establish a series of recommendations.

He said that this afternoon Canada, as President of the Council, would initiate an examination of the sanctions regime. There was agreement among Council members that a special working group should be established, which would look at findings of this and other studies with a view to working at a serious redefinition and review of sanctions. The group would work towards a target date of November for its findings.

There were lessons to be learned from the "decade of sanctions", he said, not only for the Security Council, but also for countries like Canada, which will start to review its own legislative regime. Some of the recommendations in the study could be taken up right away, he said, and a group of experts would be commissioned to start working on that aspect. The group would also provide further studies on sanctions regimes and act as a constant monitor that could report to the Council.

Mr. Lopez highlighted some of the findings of the study. He said that while the Iraq case was formative for the decade, it should not be the generalization of the decade. There had been different types of sanctions, such as the application of targeted and travel sanctions, in which the United Nations had moved to a much more focused approach. Particularly in the case of Sudan and Libya, there had been some "serious" success.

In the Yugoslav case, the more serious approach to monitoring, and the relationship between bargaining incentives and sanctions as a means of bringing parties to the table had been an important learning experience for the United Nations, he said. But, the Liberia, Somalia and Rwanda cases showed that there were going to be “sieves” when embargoes were put in place without serious enforcement and monitoring. The lack of teeth in those three arms embargoes were a serious indictment of the way sanctions had been approached by the Council.

Mr. Cortright, highlighting some of the study's recommendations, said that sanctions should not be seen solely as instruments of punishment, but also as tools of persuasion, applied within a dynamic of both coercive pressures and

Sanctions Press Conference - 2 - 17 April 2000

incentives, to bring about a negotiated resolution of conflict. Minimizing unintended impact was crucial, not only on the humanitarian level, but also from the perspective of third parties, such as major trading partners of a sanctioned regime. Better assessment at an early stage of sanction implementation was necessary, as were compensatory measures.

The secretariat capacity of the United Nations needed upgrading, he said. More resources and more specialized expertise, especially in areas of financing, arms embargoes and travel sanctions, were necessary. A so called "virtual capacity" of expert groups, special representatives and investigative commissions was already starting to play an important role, and should be made a regular feature of sanctions in the future. The sanctions committees had also become more important during the last decade and had taken on policy dimensions.

Mr. Lopez, answering a correspondent's questions, said that the greatest likelihood of compliance, and the most rapid one, lay in a democratic or quasi- democratic approach. A bilateral or regional approach seemed best tailored to combine sanctions and incentives. In a broad sanctions regime, opposition groups in the targeted country could be disempowered. The actors in the bilateral and regional framework were also closer to home, so that the refinements, the ongoing bargaining and off-the-record discussions were much more intense earlier on than in an international sanctions episode.

Asked how the differing national interests among members of the Security Council conflicted with the collective interest of the Council, Mr. Cortright answered that that was an endemic problem in international organizations. It required political bargaining and negotiations within the Council, and with regional organizations and neighbouring States as well.

Mr. Malone added that there was also a philosophical difference among those Council members who see sanctions as incentives and disincentives to modify behaviour, and those who see them as mainly punitive.

Mr. Axworthy said that sanctions should be a mixture of strategies that provided strong measures to restrict the flow of goods and services, but also of incentives to reward compliance. "The whole point of sanctions is not to be punitive, but to get results."

Mr. Cortright, when asked what to do about Council members who busted the same sanctions they voted for, said that Ambassador Fowler's report on the situation of sanctions in Angola [report of the Panel of Experts on Violations of Security Council Sanctions against the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA)] had recommended that governments violating sanctions should be subject to secondary pressures themselves. The naming of names, according to Mr. Lopez, had in itself had a serious impact.

Mr. Axworthy added that the issue would be addressed tomorrow, when the Council considered Angola sanctions. A plan of action would address not only sanction busters, but also those who were aiding and abetting the violators.

Asked whether there were instances in which sanction busters needed to be penalized and if Angola was one of those cases, Mr. Axworthy said that international and domestic law provided for penalties for people and organizations that broke the law in such areas as war crimes. There was a need for national

jurisdictions to respond to those issues. In the case of arms traders and diamond traders in Angola, penalties must be imposed. But there must be incentives too.

Mr. Lopez said that effective monitoring, stricter legislation for penalties and "putting teeth" in sanctions legislation at the Security Council level could work pre-emptively because the cost of violating sanctions would become too high. This had happened in the case of Yugoslavia.

Enormous costs were involved in enforcing an embargo, Mr. Cortright said, but that was not beyond the capacity of governments, especially in light of the huge investments made in peacekeeping and military operations. Combining arms embargoes with travel sanctions and financial sanctions had proved to be effective in raising the cost of doing business for sanctions busters.

Mr. Malone added that, because of a lack of resources, the Secretariat's analytical capacity in that area was virtually nil. If Member States were serious about making sanctions more effective, then a significant build-up of analytical capacities was necessary. Whether the Council would be able to sway the General Assembly in that direction remained an open question until the budget discussions were concluded.

There was a convergence of different initiatives, according to Mr. Axworthy, which provided an increasingly smaller scope for arms trading. In the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), for instance, a condition for membership nowadays was that aspiring members would not "cascade" existing weapons systems. Similar conditions were set for Eastern European countries vying for membership in the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) or the Council of Europe. Higher levels of conditionality were accepted, for instance when applying for debt relief.

Mr. Cortright, in answer to another correspondent's question, said that a permanent bureaucracy to deal with sanctions would not make much sense. What was necessary was establishment of a "virtual capacity" and the appointment of a roster of investigators, combined with a budgetary process (assessed or voluntary contributions) appropriate to a particular episode.

Asked what Canada would do to ensure that the increased momentum in the area of sanctions would continue after the country left the Council, Mr. Axworthy answered that he hoped the initiative would leave some lasting machinery in place. Other countries shared the same concerns. A "human security network of countries" had been established, which consisted of 12 countries that had worked together on issues of human security. Some of those countries were now seeking election to the Security Council.

Asked about the situation in Lebanon, Mr. Axworthy said that he had met with the Secretary-General this morning. Perhaps there would be a meeting of the Security Council on the subject. Some kind of Council affirmation for the Secretary-General to begin exploring the options was important. It would be a tough situation for the United Nations peacekeepers to fill in after Israeli troops withdraw, but the United Nations had faced tough situations before. If the Council gave a proper mandate and the necessary resources, it was feasible.

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