Global Policy Forum

By Edith M. Lederer

Calling for a new effort to make U.N. sanctions more effective and just, Secretary-General Kofi Annan says "smart sanctions" that target regimes while attempting to spare innocent populations are not enough. The challenge, he said, is to provide "carrots as well as sticks" to get rogue states to return to internationally accepted rules of behavior. "The states against which sanctions are imposed must believe that if their behavior changes, the Security Council is genuinely willing to alleviate, suspend or lift the sanctions," Annan said. "Otherwise, they have no real incentive to comply. And, ultimately, compliance is the only measure of success."

Annan has repeatedly raised the dilemma that broad trade embargoes too often hurt innocent civilians, not the rogue regimes they are supposed to target, especially in the case of Iraq. He also has backed "smart sanctions" that target regimes and individuals with specific measures, such as travel bans and freezing foreign bank accounts.

But Wednesday night he appeared to go further, welcoming the recent emphasis on "smart sanctions" but saying they will not be enough to get states that have transgressed to comply with international rules and norms. "The challenge is to achieve consensus about the precise and specific aims of the sanctions, and then provide the necessary means and will for them to succeed," Annan said. "We may not resolve this issue in a day, or in a year. But over time, I believe we can and we must make sanctions more effective and more just."

The last decade has seen the Security Council impose more sanctions than at any other time, and sometimes they have been effective, he said, citing last year's hand over by Libya of two suspects in the 1988 bombing of a U.S. jumbo jet over Lockerbie, Scotland.

"However, in too many instances, we are witnessing a tragic and unintended cycle of events, in which sanctions inadvertently strengthen the hold on power of governments or groups whose illegal behavior triggered them in the first place," Annan said at a dinner of the International Rescue Committee. "In turn, the international community reacts by prolonging sanctions, and thereby may even be postponing the moment when the changes sought will actually come about. It is this 'sanctions cycle' that must be broken," he said.

Expressing regret at the suffering of the Iraqi people, Annan said he would like U.N. sanctions to be lifted "sooner rather than later." But he said this demands that the international community find a way to get Iraq to comply with Security Council allow weapons inspectors to return. Inspectors pulled out of Iraq in December 1988 ahead of U.S. and British airstrikes, and Baghdad has barred them from returning.