STATEMENT BY
H.E. AMBASSADOR HASMY AGAM
PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE OF MALAYSIA TO THE UNITED NATIONS
ON GENERAL ISSUES RELATING TO SANCTIONSMONDAY, 17 APRIL 2000
Mr. President,
My delegation is pleased to see you, Sir, preside at this meeting of the Council on this important subject. We commend Canada for putting this issue on the Council’s agenda for this month in the context of its pursuance of the human security agenda.
2. While sanctions are not mentioned per se in the Charter of the United Nations, they are certainly a tool available to the Security Council, short of military force, against states whose policies and actions constitute a threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or an act of aggression. This is provided for in Article 41 of the Charter. However, because of the grave unintended collateral impacts of all-encompassing sanctions, these measures have given rise to serious concern on the part of the international community. The challenge before the Council now is to design sanction regimes that work effectively with minimal unintended "collateral impacts" and with the unqualified support of the international community. We commend the efforts made by a number of countries such as Switzerland, Germany, the United Kingdom, as well as your own country, Canada – and of course, the important seminar organised by the International Peace Academy this morning.
3. Malaysia, as a matter of principle, is against the imposition of sanctions on any country unless the Security Council, after careful consideration, has so determined that the state or country in question is indeed a threat to the peace, breach of the peace or is guilty of aggression which requires the direct collective response of the international community short of the use of military force. It is Malaysia's conviction that sanctions against a country and people should be resorted to only when all other peaceful measures have been exhausted and failed. As an instrument of coercion they should be used with great caution because of their unintended grave consequences to the innocent population of the targeted country. We also believe that before the imposition of sanctions there should be a pre-assessment report on the likely impact of the planned targeted measures. When sanctions are finally imposed, there should be periodic evaluation of the sanctions and an early comprehensive assessment of their impact. These assessments provide an objective and scientific basis for an overall evaluation of the effectiveness or otherwise of the sanctions imposed by the Council. Such assessments are an invaluable and indispensable tool in assisting the Council to determine the appropriate steps that may be taken in respect of specific sanctions regime.
4. In most instances, it has not been easy to effectively implement a sanctions regime except when it serves the particular interests of one or more of the permanent members of the Council—the sanctions on Libya and Iraq being the obvious cases in point. In these two instances, the sanctions were carried out with almost religious zeal. The recently-imposed sanctions on Afghanistan or, more specifically, the Taliban, would be another case in point when, again, without the required pre-assessment of the likely impact of the sanctions a series of measures were decided upon by the Council through its resolution No. 1267 (1999) and additional measures, as contained in the Presidential Statement of 7 April 2000, are now being contemplated. Sanctions, as provided for in the Charter, are meant to be provisional in nature and should be implemented accordingly, i.e. provisionally and not permanently. Also, in their implementation serious consideration should be given to exemptions of humanitarian grounds. It is regrettable that more often than not the Council is quick in imposing sanctions but slow in lifting them when the conditions that had prompted the sanctions are no longer in existence. The sanctions on Libya, which were only suspended and not lifted, are a clear case in point. Clearly, if sanctions are to secure the strong support of the international community, it is imperative that sanctions which have served their purpose should be formally lifted by the Council.
5. With the exception of the sanctions on Iraq—the only existing comprehensive sanctions today—there is now a clear preference on the part of the Council to impose the so-called "targeted sanctions" whereby certain elites or groups of individuals or entities are targeted with a view to coercing them to comply with certain stipulated requirements or a general change of behaviour or policy before the sanctions could be lifted. This, clearly, is a more acceptable and humane form of sanctions. However, as in the case of comprehensive sanctions, there should also be careful and exhaustive analyses of the likely impact of these targeted sanctions. Among the pertinent questions that should be considered in depth are the extent and location of the assets of the targeted elites, the kinds of measures that are likely to have the greatest impact on the intended targets as well as positive elements that can be built into the sanctions regime to motivate compliance by the targeted individuals or entity. Conditions for the lifting of the sanctions, at the appropriate time, should also be incorporated in the sanctions regimes.
Mr. President,
6. Malaysia has serious reservations and will not support the imposition of sanctions beyond a time frame that is necessary or feasible. This is because experience has shown that sanctions rarely work on the intended target or targets. Instead, they have brought unmitigated sufferings on ordinary people. Sanctions directed at the elites or ruling class will have a direct and indirect effect on the population under their control in virtually every aspect of their lives, be it air travel, trade and commerce or other economic activities covered by the sanctions. This is because targeted elites do not live in splendid isolation. They live in societies. Indeed, sanctions sometimes have the unintended effect of entrenching or even strengthening the very targets they were intended to coerce. In the end, it is the innocent ordinary people living in areas under their control that bear the price, not the intended target or targets; hence, the importance of ongoing assessment of the impact of sanctions, which should be modified, if deemed necessary, or even lifted if they prove to be ineffective so as to spare the people from further unnecessary hardship.
7. If sanctions are meant to be an alternative to military action, then surely their implementation must take into cognizance of and respect for basic principles of international humanitarian law, such as the concept of "proportionality" in the damage inflicted, and on the necessary "distinction" between civilian and military targets. There are also other international conventions and legal instruments that sanctioning authorities cannot simply ignore. In its implementation of sanctions regimes, the Council must demonstrate that every possible effort is made to avoid violating the basic rights of the general population. That should also apply in respect of non-UN sanctions regimes, such as those imposed unilaterally or regionally.
8. The widespread humanitarian suffering that comprehensive economic embargoes in particular can cause raises the moral question as to whether the Security Council can violate social and economic rights and/or civil and political rights in the pursuit of international peace and security. It is of course recognised that targeted regimes retain the primary responsibility for the continuation or lifting of the sanctions that have been imposed on them and for the well-being of their people. This, however, does not absolve the Council from its own responsibility of ensuring that the fundamental rights of the population in the target country are respected or preserved. The imposition of sanctions, while legitimate and provided for in the UN Charter, must also be humane in its implementation or else it will lose the support of the international community which is necessary for the effectiveness of sanctions regimes and credibility of the Council.
9. A more effective strategy for the use of sanctions should be based on an understanding of why sanctions succeed or fail. The institutional capacity of the UN system must be enhanced, including the mechanisms for monitoring and impact assessment as well as in respect of technical assistance and specialized expertise which should be made available to the respective Sanctions Committees. Greater uniformity and consistency are needed, not only in Security Council resolutions and in the guidelines for monitoring and enforcement provided to Member States and regional organizations but also in the national legislation and administrative procedures of Member States.
Mr. President,
10. A smart sanctions strategy should be part of a carrot-and-stick diplomacy designed to bring about negotiated settlement of disputes. Coercive measures, when applied, should be combined with concrete incentives for compliance as instruments of persuasive diplomacy. Targeted financial sanctions, arms embargoes, and travel bans offer promise as a means of focusing coercive pressure on decision-making elites, while minimizing humanitarian and third party costs. Such measures are more likely to receive the international cooperation necessary for effective monitoring and enforcement.
11. The analogy of smart sanctions to smart weapons systems is very apt indeed. While the UN talks about comprehensive sanctions as a blunt instrument, the supposedly precise targeting of the "smart sanctions", like the "smart bombs", is meant to reduce "collateral damage" – that ubiquitous term to refer to unintended targets. Unfortunately, many civilians have become victims of the so-called smart bombs. It is "smart" to the extent that Man can make it so. Let us hope that smart sanctions will perform much better than the smart bombs in minimising the collateral damage on the unintended target—the general public.
Mr. President,
12. Sanctions affect third countries in that they often impose extremely high economic costs on the major economic partners of target states. This aspect of the problem is recognised in Article 50 of the Charter, but is very rarely invoked, or, if invoked, seldom seriously addressed. Despite calls from Member States for these costs to be spread equitably this rarely happens. Assistance to disadvantaged states has been ad hoc and is inadequate. It is true that some provisions for third party compensation have been made but mostly in those cases where the interests of major powers have been engaged in the pursuit of sanctions, notably in former Yugoslavia and Iraq. No such aid has been forthcoming in the case of the African sanctions regimes. Where little or no assistance is available, the affected states may have no choice but to continue surreptitiously with their traditional economic relationships in order to avoid economic hardship to themselves. On occasions, they do so openly as was clearly the case in respect of the sanctions regime on Libya when the Organisation of African Unity decided in 1998 to cease complying with the UN sanctions directed against Libya.
13. Prolonged trade sanctions cause social costs which are hard to measure but also hard to reverse. Furthermore, for the sanctions regime to be effective, there are significant management and enforcement costs involved. The costs to the sanctioning states involve those of legal innovation and/or reform, the ongoing detailed information gathering for targeting and impact monitoring, enforcement, and providing humanitarian aid. High administrative or transaction costs may also be incurred in planning and implementation monitoring, reporting, coalition- and consensus-building, etc. This requires adequate, competent and dedicated human resources which the Organisation often has been reluctant to fund. In some cases the frozen assets of the target country can be used to offset some of the costs. What is clear is that "cheap sanctions" are unlikely to be effective sanctions. Capacity constraints exist within the UN Secretariat, UN Sanctions Committees as well as with regional groupings of States that impose sanctions and within humanitarian agencies operating in sanction-affected countries. These constraints must be addressed.
14. In examining the question of a more effective and humane UN sanctions, we cannot but consider the sanctions imposed on Iraq as an example of a sanctions regime that went very wrong. The sanctions imposed on Iraq are the most comprehensive embargo ever devised. The prolonged economic strangulation of that country, combined with the destruction resulting from the Gulf War in 1991, has created one of the worst humanitarian crises of the past decade. This has already been highlighted by my delegation in a recent statement in the Council. Suffice it to say that these sanctions have had a devastating impact on the people.
15. By continuing to maintain economic sanctions on Iraq, in the full knowledge of its deplorable consequences, the Security Council will continue to undermine the spirit and letter the Charter of the United Nations, thereby undermining the confidence of the international community in the Council itself. It is time for us to view the matter, beginning with an immediate impact assessment of the decade-long sanctions. Only a comprehensive assessment will be able to tell us in an objective way whether the sanctions on Iraq have been carried out in the right way or on what went wrong and what needs to be done in the interest of ending the plight of the ordinary people.
16. In conclusion, Mr. President, my delegation welcomes the issuance of the Note by the President of the Council to establish a working group to develop general recommendations on how to improve the effectiveness of United Nations sanctions. Today's debate and the Presidential Note demonstrate the Council's serious response to the need for a serious examination of the sanctions issue in the context of our time. It is to be hoped that the deliberations of the working group will be able to make in-depth examination of, inter-alia, all of the issues identified in the Note and to report its findings to the Council by 30 November 2000. However, as in all issues pertaining to the Council, the findings are not as important as the manifestation of the necessary political will on the part of Council members to follow-up on the decisions of the Council which will be made on the basis of these findings. I think we all generally know how to improve sanctions. What remains is political will. Unless there is this political will this exercise will not mean much.
Thank you, Mr. President.