Soon after the founding of the Kroc Institute, we unexpectedly found ourselves observer-participants in emerging debates in New York, Washington, and beyond around the use of economic sanctions for peace. The United Nations Security Council had just imposed...
Striking the right balance of carrots and sticks, with intensive diplomacy, is critical for economic sanctions to work. Shifting U.S. engagement toward Iran illuminates this point. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) represented a successful case in this...
Corruption is a major factor in why violent conflicts are proliferating worldwide and proving so hard to end. For the first 20 years of this century, Afghanistan served as an important case in point. External investment in the country was siphoned off by corrupt state...
The Sentry, the organization I lead, advocates for the use of targeted network sanctions to pressure those who engage in—or enable—the world’s worst atrocities. Some critics argue that sanctions are overused, and as a general matter, I agree. The Trump administration...
In recent decades, a paradigm emerged for studying economic sanctions, within which scholars and policymakers sought to address a set of recurring questions: How can sanctions be more effective? Specifically, what might be done so that those targeted by sanctions are...
Economic sanctions have become one of the most prevalent tools of international affairs and modern statecraft, yet norms and regulations for how sanctions are used have not kept pace. The popularity of the measures stems from their perception as an intermediate tool...
Since the end of the Cold War, economic sanctions have become an essential instrument of global and national foreign policy, imposed to end civil wars and thwart nuclear proliferation, mass atrocities, and terrorism. But over the past decade sanctions have become...
The United States has a long history of enacting sanctions on Syria, beginning in 1979 with the designation of Syria as a “state sponsor of terrorism.” Initial measures were limited to restrictions on weapons transfers and targeted sanctions on government officials...
The U.S. imposed sanctions on Iran in 1979 following the Islamic revolution and the taking of U.S. hostages. Iranian imports to the U.S. were banned, and more than $12 billion in Iranian assets held in U.S. accounts were frozen. These sanctions were broadened in 1984...
The United States first imposed economic sanctions on Venezuela in 2017 when it blocked the government and its state-owned oil firm from access to financing and dividend payments. These actions, which initially came in response to the Maduro regime stripping of powers...
George A. Lopez United Nations Security Council sanctions continue to be used frequently to address a range of peace and conflict issues, from nuclear nonproliferation to the prevention and settlement of armed conflict. UN sanctions have also been utilized for...
Mary Ellen O'Connell Mary Ellen O’Connell is the Robert and Marion Short Professor of Law and Research Professor of International Dispute Resolution at the University of Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. Opponents of the Iran nuclear deal...
Michael C. Desch Michael C. Desch is Professor of Political Science and Co-director of the Notre Dame International Security Program. Winston Churchill famously said of democracy that it was the worst form of government except for all the others. The same could be...
David Cortright David Cortright is Director of Policy Studies for the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame. The Iran nuclear deal resulted in part from the effective use of multilateral sanctions to apply persuasive pressure...
George A. Lopez and David Cortright In light of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s inauguration and his declared intention to enhance transparency and improve relations with the international community, a new and significant opportunity exists to end the nuclear...
Stephen W. Bosworth I have been dealing with North Korea since the 1990s, when we tried to implement the Agreed Framework, and later when I served as the U.S. Ambassador in Seoul. When I returned to active service as the Special Representative to North Korea in...
George A. Lopez The new North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has come to power in a fledgling nuclear state that thus far has resisted pressures from the West and the Security Council to denuclearize. As he scans the political horizon, Kim may arrive at several conclusions...
David Cortright and Linda Gerber-Stellingwerf The history of nonproliferation teaches that nations must be persuaded rather than forced to give up nuclear weapons capability. This is a difficult challenge with a regime as truculent as North Korea, where the primary...
George A. Lopez I disagree with my colleagues David Cortright and Mary Ellen O’Connell regarding the scope and direction of the Libyan intervention of the Security Council and NATO. The essential dilemma faced by the international community, as manifest in Security...
Robert C. Johansen International law and time-honored ethical traditions prohibit the targeting of noncombatants. Yet in most recent conflicts, more civilians have been killed than soldiers. What can we do to increase the influence of legal and ethical norms...