About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

19 Fletcher F. World Aff. 65 (1995)
The Sanctions Era: An Alternative to Military Intervention

handle is hein.journals/forwa19 and id is 285 raw text is: THE SANCTIONS ERA: AN ALTERNATIVE TO MILITARY INTERVENTION GEORGE A. LOPEZ and DAVID CORTRIGHT Economic sanctions have been part of the diplomatic repertoire for centuries. Originally forged as a strategy for waging economic war during ongoing hostilities, in the modem era sanctions have assumed varying purposes. They are sometimes a coercive foreign policy measure taken short of war, a multi- lateral instrument of preventive diplomacy, a strategy to spark political and social change within a target country, or even a prelude to war.' In the post-Cold War world, the prominence of economic sanctions has increased dramatically, as have the different situations in which they are employed. A glance at a series of major international events within the past year illustrates rather well the unprecedented pace and diversity of sanctions episodes. In 1992 the United States began a half-hearted policy of invoking sanctions against the military dictatorship of General Raoul C~dras in Haiti. By the spring of 1994 international and regional pressure pushed the United States and the U.N. Security Council to tighten the sanctions and set deadlines for the depar- ture of the junta. At the same time, the United States threatened stringent sanctions against North Korea for refusing to permit full inspection of suspected nuclear weapons activities. In Haiti, sanctions fell short of their goal of over- throwing the dictatorship, and ultimately they were combined with coercive 1 A succinct review of the use of economic warfare and coercion since the Seven Years War can be found in Tor Egil Forland, The History of Economic Warfare: International Law, Effectiveness, Strategies, Journal of Peace Research Vol. 30, no. 2,151-62; and Stephen C. Neff, Boycott and the Law of Nations: Economic Warfare and Modem International Law in Historical Perspective, in Ian Brownlie and D.W. Bowett (eds.), The British Yearbook of International Law, 1988 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), 135-45. The best theoretical treatment of sanctions as a diplomatic tool can be found in David A. Baldwin, Economic Statecraft (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985). For a critique of sanctions as a trap door to war, see Jack Patterson, The Political and Moral Appropriateness of Sanctions, in David Cortright and George Lopez, Economic Sanctions: Panacea or Peacebuilding in a Post-Cold War World? (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1995). George A. Lopez is Professor of Government and International Studies and Faculty Fellow at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame. David Cortright is President of the Fourth Freedom Forum, Goshen, Indiana, and a visiting Faculty Fellow at the Kroc Institute. Mr. Lopez and Mr. Cortright are editors and contributors to Economic Sanctions: Panacea or Peacebuilding in a Post-Cold War World? from which some of the material in this essay is drawn.

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most