August 27,1998
I. Achieving Peace and Security
Sanctions
62. I have in the past underlined the need for a mechanism that renders sanctions a less blunt and more effective instrument. Therefore, I welcome the fact that the concept of "smart sanctions", which seek to pressure regimes rather than peoples and thus reduce humanitarian costs, has been gaining support among Member States. The increasing interest in more targeted sanctions was evident in the recent measures applied by the Security Council against the military junta in Sierra Leone and against UNITA in Angola.
63. Resolutions covering mandatory measures should also address humanitarian exemptions and third-State issues. Although sanctions regimes established by the Security Council normally do include humanitarian exemptions, some human rights treaty-monitoring bodies have stressed the need for such regimes to include specific measures protecting the human rights of vulnerable groups. The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has argued that such considerations must be fully taken into account when a sanctions regime is being designed; that effective monitoring must be undertaken throughout the period when sanctions are in force; and that the party or parties responsible for the imposition, maintenance or implementation of sanctions should take steps to prevent any disproportionate suffering being experienced by vulnerable groups within the targeted country. The Committee on the Rights of the Child took a similar approach, pointing out that, in certain conditions, sanctions can act as an obstacle to the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
64. The international community should be under no illusion: these humanitarian and human rights policy goals cannot easily be reconciled with those of a sanctions regime. It cannot be too strongly emphasized that sanctions are a tool of enforcement and, like other methods of enforcement, they will do harm. This should be borne in mind when the decision to impose them is taken, and when the results are subsequently evaluated.
