A Better Way to Use Sanctions in Africa
Originally published on Lawfare
Article Outline
- Western foreign policy in Africa has been heavily sanctions-based
- Most sanctions programs fall short of their goals
- The recent changes in government in Zimbabwe and Sudan offe ra chance to revisit the effectiveness of sanctions regimes against these two countries
- In both cases, sanctions were imposed to address human rights violations
- Sudan: terrorism and human rights violations in Darfur
- Zimbabwe: suppression of political opposition and democratic institutions
- Economic sanctions are often the default response by the West in response to a crisis
- Politicians need to be seen doing something
- Sanctions are an attractive middle-ground
- Stronger message than diplomatic engagement
- Less costly than military intervention
- Can theoretically address a wide variety of threats to regional and international stability
- There are currently 25 different sanctions programs targeting 11 different sub-Saharan countries
- In theory sanctions are a way to encourage behavioral change
- However, sanctions have a mixed record in effecting such change
- Some sanctions regimes have had success, but most suffer from poor conceptualization and weak enforcement
- Sanctions can be effective when designed, implemented and enforced thoughtfully and transparently
- Poorly designed sanctions lead to wasted opportunities
- US and EU have a sanctions regime targeting Burundi
- Launched in 2015 to address ethnic cleansing
- US sanctioned both government and opposition forces to show "balance" -- this led to the US sanctioning people who were jailed by the regime
- Sanctions were not maintained or updated after the initial implementation
- No names added or removed to reflect changes in behavior
- No follow-up UN sanctions
- Sanctions allowed President Nkurunziza to blame economic trouble on the West, securing his hold on power
- Were these sanctions the right idea to prevent or stop ethnic cleansing?
- Instead of ad-hoc sanctions against individuals and institutions, a better approach is "network sanctions"
- Freeze assets of not just primary targets, but also individuals and organizations that support and act on the primary targets' behalf
- Go beyond singling out the leadership of a government and target the wider network that enables those leaders engage in atrocities
- Example: Freeze assets of corporations owned or controlled by the people being targeted
- Network sanctions are more effective than blunt comprehensive sanctions that target the entire country
- Network sanctions should have the following 4 factors to be effective
- Multilateral
- Well articulated goals
- Exit strategy -- what does an individual or organization need to do to get off the sanctions list?
- Plan for maintaining and updating sanctions in the face of changing political situation
- The West should review its existing sanctions and revise enforcement plans and write de-listing roadmaps to allow entities that were targeted to remove themselves from the sanctions list by proving changes in behavior
- Without these improvements, we risk making sanctions obsolete
My Thoughts
- The main problem with network-based sanctions is that often we're targeting individuals who have the ability to subvert state institutions
- How do you implement network-based sanctions when one of the entities supporting and acting on behalf of a targeted individual is the state power company, the state oil company or the central bank?
- Implementing network-based sanctions more broadly encourages leaders to launder their transactions through systemically important institutions
- At that point, network-based sanctions blur into the sort of broad-spectrum country-based sanctions that the article criticizes
