As a blunt tool of diplomacy, the concept of sanctions has been around at least from the time of the ancient Greeks, when Athens imposed a trade embargo on its neighbor Megara in 432 B.C. Since then, there has been a long history of countries blockading their enemies to compel a change in behavior. But how did this tactic morph into today's "targeted" or "smart" sanctions -- measures such as arms embargoes, asset freezes, and travel bans on key individuals and organizations -- now aimed at Iran and Syria? They may be more humane and high-tech than a flotilla at sea, but are sanctions any more effective today than they were 2,400 years ago? After all, Athens's embargo didn't cow Megara into submission -- it helped trigger the Peloponnesian War.
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1892-1894
In a series of conferences, European pacifists
debate how the decisions of a proposed international system of arbitration
would be enforced. Belgian international law professor Henri La Fontaine
persuades delegates to endorse peaceful "sanctions," borrowing a legal term
that originated in the 17th century but had yet to permeate statecraft.
1918
After World War I, French statesmen Léon
Bourgeois and Paul Henri d'Estournelles de Constant call for a "society of
nations" that could isolate a "recalcitrant nation" by applying sanctions -- a "diplomatic
expression," they explain, "meaning the various steps for enforcing compliance."
1919
Promoting the League of Nations, U.S. President
Woodrow Wilson advocates "absolute" boycotts, in which all citizens of an
aggressor country would be unable to trade, communicate, or do business with
League members.
1935-1936
Wilson's theory flunks
its first major test as League of Nations sanctions against Italy -- defanged by
British and French noncompliance -- unsurprisingly fail to persuade Benito
Mussolini to withdraw his troops from Abyssinia (modern-day Ethiopia).
1940-1941
U.S. trade sanctions against Japan
contribute to Tokyo's decision to enter World War II. Japanese Foreign Minister Teijiro Toyoda denounces "this
ever-strengthening chain of encirclement" months before the Pearl Harbor
attack.
1945
The United Nations
enshrines sanctions in its charter and centralizes the act of decision-making
in the Security Council. But it will impose mandatory sanctions only twice -- against
white-minority governments in Rhodesia and South Africa -- during the Cold War, when
superpowers jockey for influence by adopting unilateral sanctions such as the
U.S. embargo of Cuba.
1967
Norwegian sociologist Johan Galtung assails the
prevailing wisdom that sanctions should inflict maximum harm on a country's
economy, arguing that people adapt to the measures and may rally around their
leaders. "The collective nature of economic sanctions makes them hit the innocent
along with the guilty," he observes.
1980s
International sanctions against apartheid are
strengthened by a grassroots divestment campaign from civil society groups that
withdraws some $20 billion from companies doing business in South Africa,
placing unprecedented private pressure on the country's government.
1990
The Security
Council, united by alarm over Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, imposes "comprehensive
sanctions" on Baghdad. The most powerful sanctions in history -- intended to
cripple Saddam Hussein's regime and prevent the development of weapons of mass
destruction -- inspire sweeping measures against the former Yugoslavia and Haiti
later in the decade.
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