CRITIQUE OF UNITED NATIONS SANCTIONS AS AN EFFECTIVE MEANS OF ENSURING INTERNATIONAL PEACE AND SECURITY
CHAPTER ONE
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study
The history of international law is a chronicle of attempts by members of the international community to establish a framework that would prevent the scourge of war, effectively resolve international disputes and promote mutual respect for the integrity of states. With the failure of the League of Nations to prevent World War 2, the United Nations (UN) was created in 1945 and the Security
Council (SC); its primary organ was charged with maintaining international peace and security.The SC’s first task in this regard is to determine the existence of any threat to, or breach of the peace or act of aggression under Article 39 of the UN Charter. Following such determination; the SC may decide what measures short of armed force are to be employed to give effect to its decisions, or it may authorize military action.[1] The measures short of armed force – otherwise termed “sanctions” are the focus of this research. It must be quickly pointed out that every enforcement measure authorised by the SC under Chapter VII of the UN Charter constitutes a sanction. Enforcement measures may be broadly categorised into “military sanctions”, i.e. those involving the use of armed force and “nonmilitary sanctions”, or those excluding the use of armed force. This study is concerned with the latter category, and uses the term ‘sanctions’ in that sense.
During the Cold War, veto power politics and the ideological tension between the United
States (US) and Soviet Union caused a stalemate in the SC which hindered the use of sanctions in the UN’s collective security system. The demise of the Soviet Union however roused the SC from its sanctions lethargy, and a revived SC imposed sanctions on a dozen states during the 1990s; as a result of which the 1990s were christened “the sanctions decade.”[2] This enthusiasm has to date motivated the UN to impose sanctions to protect human rights, prevent and curtail armed conflict, counter illegal invasion or annexation of territory, negotiate peace agreements, combat terrorism and encourage nuclear disarmament. Their increased use stems largely from the perception of sanctions as a middle ground between the extremes of diplomacy and military intervention,[3] and the decreasing legitimacy of the use of force. Sanctions have become widely viewed as a veritable tool by which the UN can compel states in violation of international law to modify their objectionable policies.
However, the threats to world peace have geometrically increased in the last few decades in spite of the current appeal of sanctions. This study therefore assesses the effectiveness of UN sanctions imposed from 1945 to 2014 in eradicating threats to and breaches of international peace and security. The study establishes first that UN sanctions have limited effectiveness in addressing threats to world peace; and second, that this limited effectiveness is as a result of flawed UN practices concerning their formation and deployment. The work concludes that UN sanctions hold great promise as an effective alternative to the use of force in eliminating threats to world peace if properly devised and applied.
