CIAO DATE: 04/05

Smart Sanctions: Restructuring UN Policy in Iraq

David Cortright, Alistair Millar, and George A. Lopez

April 2001

Fourth Freedom Forum

Abstract

This study proposes a narrowly defined and tightly implemented set of smart sanctions focusing on weapons and military-related goods, as an alternative to the current faltering comprehensive sanctions regime. Such a modernized sanctions regime would need to be sustainable over the long term via the support of key UN Security Council members and frontline states. It would remain in effect until such time as Iraq complies fully with the relevant Security Council resolutions and fulfills its disarmament obligations.

The Study Reaches the Following Conclusions:

Embargo Arms Not Trade

• Revamp the current embargo in favor of a sharpened sanctions system aimed at two key targets—the control of financial resources generated by the export of Iraqi oil, and a prohibition against imports of weapons and dual-use goods;

• Maintain controls on Iraqi oil revenues and military-related imports, but permit trade in civilian consumer goods to flow freely;

• Contract out to commercial companies the responsibility of certifying and providing notification of civilian imports into Iraq;

• Permit the ordering and contracting of civilian goods on an as-required basis rather than in 180-day phases.

Preserve Financial Controls

• Continue to channel all Iraqi oil revenues through the UN escrow account;

• Contract with an independent multinational oil brokering firm, through which all records and payments for permitted oil purchases would pass, to manage the sales of Iraqi oil and monitor any illegal surcharge payments;

• Establish a new compensation mechanism to provide economic assistance to neighboring states and begin paying Iraq's external debt;

• Freeze the personal financial assets and ban the travel of Saddam Hussein and his family, senior Iraqi political and military officials, and those associated with weapons production programs.

Strengthen Verification and Monitoring

• Tighten land-based monitoring by establishing at major border crossings into Iraq fully-resourced Sanctions Assistance Missions, modeled on the UN sanctions experience in Yugoslavia;

• Establish a system of electronic tagging of approved dual-use imports;

• Create a special investigative commission to track down and expose sanctions violators;

• Assist member states in establishing effective penalties for companies and individuals that violate the ban on exporting weapons and dual-use items to Iraq;

• Require Iraqi-bound cargo flights to submit to UN inspection.

No single element of this smart sanctions package stands alone in wielding sufficient coercive clout. But linked together such controls provide a tightened sanctions regime.

Full text (PDF format, 41 pages, 175.2 KB)