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18 Harv. Hum Rts. J. 167 (2005)
Humanitarian Safeguards in Economic Sanctions Regimes: A Call for Automatic Suspension Clauses, Periodic Monitoring, and Follow-up Assessment of Long-Term Effects

handle is hein.journals/hhrj18 and id is 173 raw text is: Humanitarian Safeguards in Economic Sanctions Regimes: A Call for Automatic Suspension Clauses, Periodic Monitoring, and Follow-Up Assessment of Long-Term Effects Robin Geiss* I. INTRODUCTION The evolution of a more functional Security Council in the aftermath of the Cold War has brought about a sharp rise in the use of economic sanc- tions. Whereas such enforcement measures had only been resorted to on two occasions prior to 1990, they have since been imposed on fourteen states.' It is for this reason that the 1990s have rightly been described as the sanctions decade.2 Initially praised as the new method to guarantee effective Security Coun- cil action while avoiding the costs and risks of military engagement, it soon became evident that sanctions had a number of unintended side effects,3 predominantly a devastating impact on the civilian population. Most strik- ingly, albeit by no means exclusively,4 these consequences became conspicu- ously evident in Iraq, after the most severe economic sanctions employed in * Ph.D., LL.M., New York University. The author can be reached for comments at rg742@nyu.edu. Research for this piece was initiated through the author's contribution to a research project under the auspices of the Center for Economic and Social Rights (CESR) in New York. Warm thanks are due to Roger Normand and Sarah Zaidi from CESR as well as to Smita Narula from New York University for their helpful comments on earlier drafts. 1. In the first forty-five years of its existence, the Security Council had only imposed sanctions on so- called pariah states Rhodesia (1966) and South Africa (1977). The sanctions against Rhodesia in particu- lar were not very effective and consequently have not been stongly criticized for their inhumane impact. See Michael Reisman & Douglas L. Stevick, The Applicability of International Law Standards to U.N. Eco- nomic Sanctions Programs, 9 EUR. J. INT'L L. 86, 99-101 (1998). For a general overview of the sanctions imposed since the end of the Cold War, see, for example, N. D. WHITE, KEEPING THE PEACE: THE UNITED NATIONS AND THE MAINTENANCE OF INTERNATIONAL PEACE AND SECURITY 107-10 (1997). 2. See DAVID CORTRIGHT & GEORGE A. LOPEZ, THE SANCTIONS DECADE: ASSESSING U.N. STRATE- GIES IN THE 1990s (2000). 3. It is noteworthy that third-party states, apart from experiencing adverse effects, may also profit significantly from a sanctions regime, which is also an unintended side effect. 4. On the devastating effects of sanctions on the population of Haiti, see Michael Reisman, Assessing the Lawfulness of Nonmilitary Enforcement: The Case of Economic Sanctions, 89 AM. SOC. INT'L L. PROC. 350, 351 (1995) (describing how [the rest of the population ... was, without exaggeration, starving to death).

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