Throughout the past century the world has seen two world wars, several dozen border conflicts, and civil uprisings with the eventual ousting of a leader. These conflicts are usually outside of media attention so all of the lives lost, corrupt leadership, and downright dishonesty is never revealed to the international public. Physical violence has always been the direct means to solving most of these conflicts but with a cost. Both side usually lost hundreds and sometimes thousands of lives and in the end there was never a plan in place to ensure these problems never occurred again. Following the completion of the Cold War sanctions have been reestablished to ensure a government or country can be held accountable without having to use lethal measures. If there was a way to cut off import and exporting of resources to the corrupt government it would force them to comply with international laws without having to use military actions. In the past sanctions have been placed on countries that have defied basic human needs, committed atrocious crimes against neighboring countries, or posed a threat so great to others (use of weapons of mass destruction) that the United Nations stepped in to protect those who could not protect themselves. Sanctions are put into place in the hopes of causing hardship for any country’s government and to ensure complete compliance has been established before these sanctions are lifted. Although these measures are not supposed to create a hardship to the main populous, over time they usually occur. History has shown us that over a short time period sometimes these restrictions work, but do they actually create an atmosphere in these countries to ensure these situations or crimes never happen again? ...
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...? The Moral and Political Issue. By David Cartwright, October 1995: http://www.sanctionsandsecurity.org/wp-content/uploads/humanitarian_sanctions_.pdf (accessed 18 March 2012).
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3. Kimberly Ann Elliott, Institute for International Economics, "Evidence on the Costs and Benefits of Economic Sanctions," Statement before the Subcommittee on Trade of the House Ways and Means Committee, October 23, 1997. The text of her statement can be found at http://www.iie.com/sanctns.htm.
4. 14 UN Press Release SG/SM/7360, echoing Lloyd Axworthy, ‘Forward’ in David Cortright and George A. Lopez, The Sanctions Decade: Assessing UN Strategies in the 1990s (A Project of the International Peace Academy; Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2000)
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Intermediate sanctions are a new punishment option developed to fill the gap between traditional probation and traditional jail or prison sentences and to better match the severity of punishment to the seriousness of the crime. Intermediate sanctions served in the community now account for 15 percent of adjudicated juvenile cases (Puzzanchera, Adams, and Sickmund, 2011). All intermediate sanctions are enforced by the United States Criminal Justice System. The main purposes of intermediate sanctions: (1) better match the severity of punishment to the seriousness of the crime, (2) reduce institutional crowding, (3) control correctional costs. Primarily, this is a needed method of punishment to make offenders accountable for the extent of crime and if so let offenders live in their communities to fulfil punishment if not too extensive.
In early 2003, the threat of Saddam Hussein and the possibility of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq captured the attention and concern of the world. One nation decided to illegally act on these unsubstantiated claims, invading the country, violating the UN Charter and breaking several international laws in the process. The penalizations that were subject to the invading country, the United States, were never carried out. The United State’s role and influence over the UN and the Security Council, along with the nature of the unenforceable, politics and power-based international laws, allowed them to escape sanctions after their invasion of Iraq. The United States did not have a legitimate reason for invading, and their ability to repudiate international law would be unacceptable for any other country. Their decision to invade Iraq was one based on money and politics, and the US should be subject to penalties just as any other nation would have to face after unnecessarily waging war on a nation.
Walsh, Brian. "Resolving the Human Rights Violations of a Previous Regime." World Affairs 158 (Winter 1996): 111-121.
“Intermediate sanctions are correctional programs that fall somewhere between probation and prison, (pg. 124, Allen).” Due to over crowded prison in the U.S. the government had to look to an alternative, which is intermediate sanctions, a step up to probation. Intermediate sanctions allow offenders to be released back into the community while still being monitored. “The sanctions are based on the sentencing goal of rehabilitation, which is a type of penalty used to reform the offender and return the offender to society as a law-abiding citizen. Intermediate sanctions alleviate prison overcrowding by allowing more offenders to participate in programs designed to reform the offender while the offender lives as a part of the community, (Study.com).”
Sanctions can create a rally around the flag effect and a resentment to those responsible.
The history of the US’s relationship with the UN is complex, seeming to vacillate between warm cooperation and abject disdain as the national interests of the US and the rest of the world, and the short- and long-term interests of the US itself, align or oppose each other. The UN was originally the vision of US president Franklin Roosevelt and the product of US State Department planning and diplomacy. It was designed to forward the national interests of its strongest members, the P-5, to reflect and channel the geopolitical power structure rather than twist it into an unnatural and unsustainable hierarchy of weak nations trying to dominate strong. Because the Charter is based in a realist view of the world, during the Cold War, when the national interests of the two world powers diverged, the UN was paralyzed to deal with any of the world’s conflicts. When the Cold War ended it gave rise to the first war that should have been authorized by the Security Council—the Persian Gulf War from later 1990 to early 1991. Many hoped for a “new world order” after the success of the Gulf War, but the interests of the US and the rest of the world, primarily the rest of the members of the Security Council, soon divided again. Today, the world is still struggling to cope with the blow dealt to the UN by the US’s use of force in Iraq, including the US, which has not even begun to feel the long-term negative effects of its unilateralism. However, the war in Iraq could have been less detrimental to the UN and the US in particular, and by extension to the rest of the world, if the US had argued that it was acting to uphold resolution 1441 under the authorization of the Security Cou...
I would recommend this book to my dad. It leaves the reader thinking, and imparts several worthwhile lessons about how humans shape the environment, politics, and the economy. Economics and politics are extremely intertwined. If one wishes to be an informed, politically active citizen, an understanding of economics is key. On the flip side, economists need to have a knowledge of politics to understand trade regulations, foreign actions, and international business. Just as America uses economic access as rewards to her allies, revoking economic access can be used as a ‘punishment.’ For example, in the recent months Russia annexed Crimea, and has threatened Ukraine. United Nations members, including America, have placed sanctions against Russia, to show that they do not condone Putin’s actions. The goal with these sanctions is not to damage the economy, but rather put pressure on Russia, in hopes to influence Putin’s next action. Sanctions, boycotts and blockades have had a long history throughout the world as protest strategies and political statements, just as economics and politics have been intertwined since the beginning of modern
Intermediate sanctions are used a lot in a lot of scenarios like house arrest, remote location monitoring and Intensive Supervision Probation or parole. It is used for more punitive and restrictive monitoring. It could be used in the middle of court proceedings like if the court does not want to lose a suspect, that suspect could be in house arrest. The use of electronic monitoring is appealing due to lower jail/prison overcrowding, expensive to do but better results, and easier to do. Offenders are given intermediate sanctions under some form of probation supervision (Bayens and Smykla). Every state except New Hampshire has some form of electronic monitoring for juvenile defendants (Weisburd). Electronic monitoring is a tool that probation
Elliott, Kimberly Evidence on the Costs and Benefits of Economic Sanctions Institute for International Economics
Whenever world politics is mentioned, the state that appears to be at the apex of affairs is the United States of America, although some will argue that it isn’t. It is paramount we know that the international system is shaped by certain defining events that has lead to some significant changes, particularly those connected with different chapters of violence. Certainly, the world wars of the twentieth century and the more recent war on terror must be included as defining moments. The warning of brute force on a potentially large scale also highlights the vigorousness of the cold war period, which dominated world politics within an interval of four decades. The practice of international relations (IR) was introduced out of a need to discuss the causes of war and the different conditions for calm in the wake of the first world war, and it is relevant we know that this has remained a crucial focus ever since. However, violence is not the only factor capable of causing interruption in the international system. Economic elements also have a remarkable impact. The great depression that happened in the 1920s, and the global financial crises of the contemporary period can be used as examples. Another concurrent problem concerns the environment, with the human climate being one among different number of important concerns for the continuing future of humankind and the planet in general.
Magno, A., (2001) Human Rights in Times of Conflict: Humanitarian Intervention . Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, 2 (5). [online] Available from: [Accessed 2 March 2011]
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