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Faculty Scholarship Series Yale Law School Faculty Scholarship

1-1-2009

Sanctions and International Law

W. Michael Reisman
Yale Law School

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Reisman, W. Michael, "Sanctions and International Law" (2009). Faculty Scholarship Series. Paper 3864.
http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/fss_papers/3864

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 SANCTIONS AND INTERNATIONAL LAW

Keynote Address, The Cuban Embargo and Human Rights

InterculturalHuman Rights Law Review Annual Symposium
October 24, 2008

W. MICHAEL REISMAN

The focus of our deliberations today is on the economic

measures directed against Cuba. With your indulgence, I propose to
inquire about the larger question of the circumstances under which it
may be lawful to use coercive economic measures against others.
For the next half hour, looking toward the future, let us think through
the international law that should regulate the application of intense
coercions whether applied by the organized community against a
targeted state or by one state against another state without the
authorization of a competent international organization. This should
enable us to make assessments about all or parts of the Cuban
Embargo, and more generally, to consider the circumstances under
which this extremely complex and destructive instrument should be
used in the future.

I.

Harold Dwight Lasswell once remarked that you can summarize

the essential techniques of politics with two words: bribery and
thuggery. At all levels of social life, people try to get others to do
what they want through agreements-by negotiation, persuasion or
inducements-or through compulsion-by intimidation or the actual
application of violence. Writ large, and deployed in myriad

Myres S. McDougal Professor of International Law, Yale Law School,

and
Recipient, First Annual Human Rights Award, Intercultural Human Rights Law
Review.

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combinations, these are indeed essential techniques of politics.

They are also inescapable components and concerns of the law.
Within efficiently organized states, the use of the most coercive of
these techniques is supposed to be monopolized by the government
apparatus and is expected to be employed solely for the maintenance
of community order and the implementation of its law. Much
municipal constitutional law is dedicated to setting and then
monitoring procedures for supervising the moments of and the
constraints on the state's use of its monopoly against its own citizens.
Since the second decade of the last century, major efforts have
been mounted on the international political plane to create and
endow international organizations and certain ad-hoc arrangements
of states with a comparable monopoly. These initiatives have been
accompanied by efforts to impose various restraints on, and
punishments for the use of force both within and between states,
when it has not been internationally authorized. Many scholars view
these initiatives as the major enterprise and a test of the
meaningfulness of modern international law.
Alas, most of these international initiatives to control the use of
force have not proved brilliantly successful. Pareto, the great Italian
scholar, observed that where the State's monopoly of violence is
ineffective, other formations fill the vacuum. In acknowledgement
of the cogency of Pareto's observation and in acknowledging its own
limitations, international law has also tried to prescribe and supervise
contingencies and permissible modes and levels of intensity by
which states and other actors may use violence when the
international community is unable to deliver on its assigned
responsibility.
The conference today focuses on the economic instrument, but
in fact there are four generic instruments of policy by which
individuals and groups try to influence others. The first is the
military instrument, which involves the application through different
modalities, of high levels of coercion by specialists in violence
against the target. The second is the economic instrument, involving
the granting or withholding of indulgences or deprivations from the
target. The third is the diplomatic instrument, involving

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communications ranging from persuasion to coercion, directed at the

elite of the target. The fourth is propaganda,which involves the
modulation of signs and symbols directed to the politically relevant
strata of a community rather than to its elite. States use all of these
four instruments in varying combinations. Even non-state entities,
ranging from human rights organizations to private armies, gangs
and terrorist groups, use many of them as well. International law
tries, with varying degrees of success, to prescribe for the
contingencies for and modalities of their use.
When these instruments are used by or with the authority of the
international community, let's say the United Nations, it is
appropriate to call them "sanctions" - military sanctions, economic
sanctions, diplomatic sanctions or ideological sanctions. When they
are used by individual states without the authorization of an
international organization, the states using them try to appropriate the
word 'sanctions,' but in fact these are forms of intense unilateral
violence. This does not mean that the action is therefore unlawful:
that is a different question.
Now, all of you are aware of the fact that the foundational
principles of international law regarding the lawful use of force are
based on distinguishing between combatants, those who are actually
carrying armaments, and non-combatants or civilians. Every lawful
use of coercion against other human beings must be necessary, must
be proportional to that necessity, and must be capable of
differentiating between those who are actively ranged against you
and non-combatants. These principles, which I call the 'MNPD'
principles of military necessity, proportionality and differentiation,
have only been applied by international legal scholars to the military
instrument. I submit to you that this is too constricted and that
international law should also be applying these same principles to
uses of the economic instrument and uses of the ideological
instrument - so called psychological warfare or 'psychwar.'
My submission is, then, that, in the twenty-first century, all
intense uses of coercion should be subjected mutatis mutandis, for
purposes of the evaluation of their prospective lawfulness, to the
same MNPD tests which until now have been confined to appraisal

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of military action. The reason is that the economic instrument can be

very destructive and can be applied in ways that do not differentiate
between those who are responsible, who make decisions, and those
who are not. In concrete cases, application of the MNPD tests may
lead either to a refashioning of the planned economic measures or a
decision not to apply it at all.

II.
Economic strategies have become the preferred foreign policy
instrument in recent years. With the end of the Cold War, multiple
economic sanction regimes have proliferated, especially through
decisions within the United Nations. Nine times since the fall of the
Berlin Wall, the Security Council has acted under Chapter Seven to
create mandatory economic sanction programs. Since 9/11, the
economic instrument has been used widely in the war against Al-
Qaeda; even before that, the Security Council in 1999 had
established the 'Al-Qaeda Taliban Sanctions Committee' pursuant to
Resolution 1267. Part of this Committee's role continues to be to
designate funds which are linked to the Taliban which states are
obligated to freeze.
Are economic measures really critical modes for influencing the
behavior in others? Woodrow Wilson was one of the great
enthusiasts of economic measures. In 1919, he said, "A nation that is
boycotted is a nation that is in sight of surrender. Apply this
economic, peaceful, silent, deadly remedy and there will be no need
for force. It is a terrible remedy. It does not cost a life outside of the
nation boycotted, but it brings oppression upon the nation, which in
my judgment no modern nation could resist." The point is well
taken. If you ask whether economic measures, applied alone and
without the military strategy, are effective in inducing adjustments in
the internal or external policies of a target, then the answer is, under
certain conditions, yes. But Wilson was only partly right. He used
the word "peaceful" to describe them and that certainly may be the
perspective of the party deciding to apply economic measures, but
from the standpoint of the party receiving the economic measures,
they are certainly not peaceful. If you look at Wilson's text

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carefully, you will note that even he acknowledges that these

sanctions are: "silent," "deadly," and "terrible." The point is that
under the right circumstances, they are a potentially powerful
instrument but they can also have great destructiveness.
Consider the case of Haiti, where United Nations authorized
sanctions was used with tremendous and indiscriminate
destructiveness. Most of the violence of the sanctions was visited on
the most vulnerable strata of the population who were responsible for
neither the expulsion of President Aristide nor the military
dictatorship that ensued. The people actually responsible for the
putsch benefited from the sanctions. The indiscriminate and
promiscuous violence of those sanctions forced a reconsideration by
the United Nations of economic sanctions programs in general.
At that time, I was President of the Inter-American Commission
on Human Rights and went to Haiti many times in the course of the
year Aristide returned. I had ample opportunity to see the
consequences of the sanctions and they were, in a word, horrible.
They destroyed what was left of the economy of the poorest state in
the hemisphere but had had no effect whatsoever on the elite which
was responsible for the situation and against which the sanctions had
been directed. They had yielded power in the face of a United States
invasion.

III.

One of the attractions of economic measures, especially for the

leaders of democracies, is that they engender less internal political
resistance than other feasible strategies. Comparatively speaking,
economic measures are politically cheap. To be sure, they may have
certain retro-costs, in the sense that one section of the economy of
the sanctioning party will have to bear the costs of the sanctions. But
in terms of your overall national economy, they may hardly be
noticeable. They are also less troubling than military measures: they
don't generate solemn processions of body bags bringing home the
mortal remains of your sons and daughters. Even when it is
glaringly obvious that economic measures are not going to be
effective, for example, the grain embargo that President Carter

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imposed on the Soviet Union in 1979 because of its invasion of

Afghanistan, they may still be taken, ostensibly to express our policy
or condemnation. But in these circumstances, they really conceal the
fact that nothing is being done. When, as often happens in
democratic politics, political forces cannot agree on the
appropriateness of the response to some perceived international
delict, economic measures, even if they are manifestly unlikely to be
effective, often recommend themselves as a compromise. Not
necessarily the most promising of options, but certainly the most
acceptable.
In the future, the attractiveness of economic measures may
decline because of the interdependence of states in an integrated
global economy in which unexpected action by one actor against
another actor will, in a type of butterfly effect, have polymorphous
consequences and even rebound against the actor who initiated them.
The more integrated the international community has become, the
more generally and reflexively disruptive can be punitive economic
measures. But the measures may still be resorted to, and the question
facing you will be whether economic measures should not be used in
these circumstances because they will violate principles of
international law. I turn now to these questions.

IV.
It is the militant sense of virtue and moral superiority of those in
the human rights community promoting economic measures that I
find so fascinating. They appeal to some people precisely because
they seem to offer only non-violent and non-discriminatory ways of
implementing international policy. 'At least,' friends tell me, 'we're
not killing anybody; at least we're giving non-lethal sanctions a
chance.' In this line of thinking, economic measures are always to
be preferred to the application of the military strategy. Under this
theory, economic measures are always to be exhausted before
resorting to the military instrument. What is missing here, I submit,
is an analysis of the prospective compliance of economic sanctions
and economic measures programs with the basic principles of
international law.

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Economic measures grant or withhold economic indulgences,

opportunities and benefits in order to induce another actor or group
of actors to change a policy. Economic measures may take many
forms and may be multilateral or unilateral. They may be directed
against a state that is occupying a territory of another state.
Consider, in this regard, the United Nations sanctions against South
Africa for its continued occupation of Namibia (South West Africa)
or the unilateral measures in the United States' Comprehensive Anti-
Apartheid Act passed during the Ford Administration. These
ultimately compelled South Africa to comply and ended Apartheid.
But economic measures have not only been designed to secure such
comprehensive objectives. Economic threats were successfully used
against South Korea and the Shah of Iran to stop them from pursuing
their nuclear weapons programs. The measures have also been used
to seek replacement of an elite, for example, Per6n in Argentina
during the Second World War or Saddam Hussein in Iraq prior to the
U.S./U.K. invasion.
Sometimes, the economic instrument is used unilaterally
without acknowledging it. Thus a state that is actually using it may
insist that the costly economic consequences of its conduct, which
are, of course, "regrettable," are the unintended and unavoidable
result of some other action. An agricultural exporting state's
perishable products aboard a ship in harbor may slowly turn to
compost, as the importing state's customs inspectors, with
unprecedented care, zealously examine each hold "by the book," all
this occurring at a moment at which the two states are engaged in
critical negotiations. Denials or not, the target state quickly learns
that the economic instrument has been wielded against it and it
adjusts its behavior accordingly. Consider the recent example of
Russia, suspending the supply of gas to Ukraine and saying that this
was done because of certain supply or production problems. The
message was clear and Ukraine acknowledged it. Unlike its military
counterpart, the economic weapon can be used in subtle ways but its
effects are not subtle, affecting the sovereignty and autonomy of the
state against which it is directed.
Economic measures are more of an equal opportunity
instrument as compared to the military instrument which only

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relatively stronger states can use. In some circumstances, relatively

weaker states may find that they enjoy a momentary economic
advantage which can allow them to influence the decisions of
another state. Even large states, such as the United States, may be
economically targeted by states that are not as strong. For example,
China has mounted an extraordinarily effective strategic economic
program against the United States through which it has secured many
of the adjustments it seeks in America's China policy. One of the
most fascinating aspects of this particular economic program is that
the target here, the United States, actually seems possessed of the
idea that it is the economic strategist, while China is the target!
How then should the international community, first, determine
the question of the very use of economic measures, the jus ad bellum
economicum, or the right to resort to economic measures in some
circumstances; and, second, especially important, the jus in bello
economico, the way that those strategies should be designed and
implemented in particular cases? I suggest that you apply the basic
principles that international law has applied only to the military
instrument: international lawyers should insist on a demonstration
that the measures are necessary to achieve an explicit and lawful
objective, that the severity of the measures is proportional to that
objective and that the measures are designed in ways that enable
them to differentiate between those who will actually make the
decision and who are responsible for the offensive behavior-the
elite of the country that is targeted-but do not target the rank-and-
file. Let us not have economic sanctions or economic measures
programs, the brunt of which are felt by children in the target state or
by the poorest strata. This occurred in Haiti and should never be
repeated. This may mean that the economic instrument will not be
available in a number of cases. So be it. Other, more effective
strategies may be deployed. Anyone concerned with the preservation
and enhancement of human dignity, which is the ultimate objective
of this part of international law, will be seriously compromised if
coercive strategies target those who are not responsible and who
cannot change the offensive behavior against which economic
measures have been directed. Thank you for your attention.

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QUESTIONAND ANSWERS

Audience: How can we effectively lift the embargo or even

economic sanctions without sending a message to the international
community that we are willing to overlook the grave human rights
violations such as disappearances and torture that are still going on in
Cuba?
Response: I haven't focused on Cuba, but I'll be happy to share
my own, rather primitive thoughts on that particular issue. There are
many ways of expressing condemnation of action that offends
international human rights. We should select ways that are effective
and that demonstrate that they will lead to a change in the behavior
concerned. In the case of Cuba, after fifty years, there is no
indication that that particular objective has been achieved by our
economic measures; so it would seem to me that it is time to
reconsider. If the measures are being applied simply as a way of
conveying contempt for a set of values and policies yet are seriously
injuring those who have no capacity to change those practices, a quoi
bon?
Audience: Professor Reisman, in your experience on economic
sanctions and on how they apply, do you know of any another
instance where the policy is as related to an internal political factor,
domestic political factor as it may be the case with the Cuban
Embargo?
Response: Consider South Africa. The United Nations
Sanctions Program was rather ineffective. I had an opportunity to
visit South Africa during their application. Speaking to members of
the economic elite, then, it was quite clear that they viewed the
United Nations efforts with contempt. There were numerous ways of
circumventing them. By contrast, the Comprehensive Anti-
Apartheid Act, which went into effect in the United States in the last
year of President Ford's administration and which was directed at
securing the transformation of the Apartheid regime into a non-racial
or multiracial society, proved very effective.
Now, you may ask what features of the context in South Africa

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rendered these particular economic measures effective and that might

not in different contexts be effective (for example a context like Haiti
or Cuba)? The context in South Africa was one in which the
political elite was dependent on a wealth elite, which was vulnerable
to the unilateral economic measures which the United States put into
place. Precisely because these sanctions reduced profitability to a
margin that was no longer acceptable to a critical part of the elite,
they indicated to the political elite that changes were required. But
in circumstances in which the political elite of the target is not
dependent upon its economic elite, the sanctions will be ineffective.
They may give us a sense of a virtue as we apply them, but they will
not achieve the objective of securing an adjustment in policy or law.
That was the situation in Haiti, where the sanctions actually opened
up contraband opportunities for the wealth elite, which enriched
itself rather than being injured. The wealth elite actually had an
interest in keeping the sanctions in place. As to the situation in
Cuba, fifty years of economic measures do not seem to have brought
about any significant adjustments in internal politics.
Audience: In dealing with a communist nation/authoritative
dictatorship such as Cuba, would you suggest that if we lift the
embargo it would perhaps remedy the situation of oppression and
maybe those human rights violations that are occurring?
Response: Once one has embarked on a policy that may have
been ill-conceived, it is not always easy to change it. Consider the
difficult situation in which the United States finds itself in Iraq. We
can't simply say 'oops' and leave. The misadventure has become
part of the process and that may apply to considerations of when,
how, and in what sequence to change it.
Audience: Well, the embargo also applies not just to the human
rights issues, but also to the Cuban government's confiscation of
American assets and businesses, so can you address that issue?
There was clear confiscation of American businesses so it [the Cuban
Embargo] was such a way to punish them [Cuba] for a engaging in
sanctions against them [the United States]. So how would you
address that issue?
Response: Look at the experience in many countries in which

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the U.S. government, acting on behalf of American investors, has

tried to secure compensation. Sometimes through a lump sum
settlement distributed through a national claims commission,
sometimes through the establishment of an international tribunal, for
example the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal. And sometimes through
massive economic measures. The point to emphasize is that one
must select strategies that promise to be effective and will not end up
causing more injury to those who are not responsible for the
offensive policy.
Consider the Cuban situation from the time of the revolution in
1959: The United States tried coercive economic measures in the last
year of the Eisenhower administration. It collapsed the sugar quota,
an economic measure that was the equivalent of a massive bombing
of the infrastructure of an agricultural economy based on sugar. It
proved ineffective. The United States invaded Cuba through proxies
in 1961, and that proved ineffective. In 1962, the United States tried
to stop the consolidation of Soviet influence in Cuba and that was of
doubtful success. And then for a period of some forty-seven years,
economic measures were in place. That, too, has proved ineffective.
Audience: Can you briefly describe how the third form of
sanction that you mentioned, that being diplomatic and propaganda,
can be used more effectively?
Response: Military manuals have a term called psychological
warfare or 'psychwar.' It is a technique in which an attempt is made
not to try to influence the elite in a country, the government, but to
try and change the attitudes of the rank and file. Some scholars
called it the 'propaganda instrument.' I prefer the term that Professor
Lasswell coined: the 'ideological instrument.' Propaganda carries
the connotation that what is involved is negative information but the
information being conveyed may in fact be the truth. How is it used?
Radio Marti, Radio Free Europe, Voice of America, Al-Jazeera, or
comparable mass media that are used by other governments are
designed to convey different views of the government to the rank and
file population of the country, through some external medium.
Is this effective by itself? Sometimes. Consider 'Desert Storm,'
President George H.W. Bush's decision to expel Iraq from Kuwait.

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As part of it, the United States conducted a program which was

directed at the Shia in the south, encouraging them to rebel. That
was a use of the ideological instrument. It succeeded, and there was
an uprising. For reasons I do not understand, the United States did
not support the rebellion, and it was brutally suppressed by Saddam
Hussein's army.
I would submit that even for the use of the ideological
instrument, the general principles of necessity, proportionality and
differentiation should be applied. The ideological instrument is often
used to stir up differences between ethnic groups (as occurred in
1991 when it was used in Saddam's Iraq). The Convention on the
Elimination of Racial Discrimination prohibits hate speech and
trying to promote hatred between groups. Would not that be a
limitation on the use of the ideological strategy?
Audience: What would you say to someone who uses the
necessary, proportional, differentiation analysis in order to skip over
economic measures and argue for military action as a first response?
Response: A very good question. United Nations Charter
Chapter VII talks about the range of measures that can be taken by
the Security Council when there has been a threat to the peace,
breach of peace, or act of aggression. There is no mandatory
sequence. Some scholars have argued that first you have to engage
in negotiation, then you have to use economic instruments, then you
can resort to the military instrument. That has never made sense to
me. I don't see why, for example, when crematoria and gas
chambers are being used in a genocide, one has to go through a
sequence: 'let's talk about it,' then 'oh, now we can try economic
measures,' and so on while people are killed. It seems to me quite
appropriate to say that if one applies the military necessity,
proportionality and differentiation criteria, there will be
circumstances in which some military action may in fact involve less
violation of those principles than would a longer drawn-out and
essentially undifferentiated economic program. Bear in mind that
when you destroy an economy, you destroy lives, you destroy
families; it has its own epidemiology. It is wrong to pretend that it is
a "peaceful" strategy.

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