Can we ever justify economic sanctions?

Ecologist, The, May, 2001 by Milan Rai, Douglas Eden

ARE ECONOMIC SANCTIONS THE CYNICAL PLOY OF POWERFUL STATES, OR A JUSTIFIABLE WEAPONS FOR USE AGENTS DICTATORS

Dear Douglas

A report by the House of Commons Select Committee on Development warned last February that economic sanctions, 'unless carefully targeted', have the capacity 'to kill more children than armed warfare'. The Future of Sanctions report noted US epidemiologist Richard Garfield's estimate that over 200,000 children had died in Iraq as a result of the comprehensive economic sanctions laid on that country over the past decade.

The all-party Select Committee concluded, after 10 months' study: 'We find it difficult to believe that there will be a case in the future where the UN would be justified in imposing comprehensive economic sanctions on a country.' The Committee favoured moving away from economic sanctions to focusing on sanctions on arms imports and on the finances and movement of key members of the Iraqi government.

Clearly, there are many different forms of economic sanctions, and each of these varieties has different impacts on different countries in different circumstances. In a highly technological, highly import-dependent country like Iraq, in the aftermath of a bombing campaign estimated to have caused over $200bn worth of damage to the infrastructure and civilian economic assets, the cutting off of normal trade has caused an enormous humanitarian crisis.

Dr W Kreisel, the Executive Director of the World Health Organisation Office of the European Union, summed up the situation in Iraq before a committee of the European Parliament on 26 February 2001, saying that, before 1990, Iraq had invested in infrastructure and in 'human resources development' to create 'an efficient health system that was considered one of the best in the Middle-East Region'.

He also notes that 'malnutrition was virtually not seen... health care services were guaranteed by an extensive network of well-equipped, well-supplied and well-staffed health facilities, and that [large investments in water and sewage treatment plants assured] nearly universal access to abundant safe drinking water and to a relatively clean environment'.

This has all changed under economic sanctions. In September 2000, the World Health Organisation found, in a joint study with other UN agencies, that about 800,000 children under the age of five are 'chronically malnourished'. (Chronic malnutrition can lead to lifelong mental and physical stunting.) UNICEF reports that death rates for babies less than a year old have more than doubled, as have death rates for under-fives (comparing 1984-1989 with 1994-1999).

'Diseases that were virtually under control are re-emerging,' says Dr Kreisel. 'Most of the health facilities are in poor physical state, lacking water and often without power supply, making them unsafe and unsuitable for good patient care.' Water and sanitation plants lack spare parts and maintenance, and need repair and rehabilitation, 'as unsafe drinking water, unhygienic environment and poor sewage systems continue to endanger the health of large sections of the Iraqi population'.

Dr Kreisel concludes: 'The severity of Iraq's humanitarian situation stems from the massive and swift degradation of the country's civilian infrastructure, aggravated by over 10 years of economic and trade isolation.' The 'swift degradation' was caused by the deliberate bombing of Iraq's civilian infrastructure by Britain and the US, though Dr Kreisel is too diplomatic to say so.

A powerful case has been developed, primarily by the Centre for Economic and Social Rights (CESR), that the economic sanctions on Iraq are illegal. Despite the UN Security Council's duty to uphold human rights, enshrined in the UN Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Security Council has never conducted a human rights audit of its policies towards Iraq. There are lessons here.

Secondly, the CESR argues that the economic sanctions regime has massively violated the human rights of ordinary families in Iraq, and particularly the rights of children, which have special protection. This violation has continued, despite the introduction of the UN 'oil-for-food' humanitarian programme, whereby Iraq is allowed to sell oil to pay for certain kinds of humanitarian goods. The September 2000 finding by UN agencies that 800,000 children under the age of five continue to be chronically malnourished is an indicator of this continuing violation.

Voices in the Wilderness UK campaigns against the comprehensive economic sanctions on Iraq, because we believe that these economic sanctions are the major obstacle to the solution of the humanitarian crisis in that country. This is a view shared with two former UN Humanitarian Co-ordinators for Iraq who resigned in protest against the sanctions. However, we do not have a view on the imposition of financial or economic sanctions targeted on particular sections of the Iraqi elite, which do not pose the same threat to ordinary people in Iraq.

The Select Committee on Development has suggested that, 'if sanctions are to be retained as a credible instrument of foreign policy, they must increasingly seek to target the assets of specific groups or individuals responsible for breaches of international law'. This is not merely a question of credibility, but of morality and of legality.