VZCZCXYZ0003
OO RUEHWEB

DE RUCNDT #0028/01 0162014
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
O 162014Z JAN 09
FM USMISSION USUN NEW YORK
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 5642
INFO RUEHGG/UN SECURITY COUNCIL COLLECTIVE IMMEDIATE
RUEHSW/AMEMBASSY BERN IMMEDIATE 0330
RUEHOT/AMEMBASSY OTTAWA IMMEDIATE 1139
RUEHTC/AMEMBASSY THE HAGUE IMMEDIATE 9089
RUEHBS/USEU BRUSSELS IMMEDIATE
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC IMMEDIATE
RUEATRS/DEPT OF TREASURY WASHDC IMMEDIATE

UNCLAS USUN NEW YORK 000028 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREL ETTC EFIN KTFN PTER UNSC
SUBJECT: UN SANCTIONS IN CRISIS? ACADEMICS SAY YES 
 
¶1.  (SBU) SUMMARY: A team of academics has proposed a new 
international process to address what they consider to be 
unprecedented challenges to the legitimacy and effectiveness 
of UN sanctions.  The threats that these academics 
highlighted to USUN included questions about the legitimacy 
of sanctions, concerns (including judicial challenges) about 
fairness and due process, weak coordination and 
follow-through on implementation and lingering misperceptions 
about the humanitarian impact of sanctions.  In December, 
these academics met with select UN missions in New York to 
discuss a new international process to confront these 
challenges.  Although representatives from P5 missions were 
not invited to this initial meeting, a U.S. professor, who 
backbriefed USUN on the discussions, reported that many 
missions shared his belief that UN sanctions need new, 
focused attention.  He also outlined the shape of a proposed 
new international sanctions process modeled on conferences 
convened nearly ten years ago that reflected on the 
experience with sanctions imposed on Iraq and Yugoslavia. 
This process would bring together academics, diplomats and UN 
Secretariat staff to hammer out a vision for the next 
generation of UN sanctions.  END SUMMARY. 
 
SANCTIONS AT THE CROSSROADS: TIME FOR A NEW PROCESS? 
--------------------------------------------- ------- 
 
¶2. (SBU) A team of academics has proposed a new international 
process to address perceived threats to the legitimacy and 
efficacy of UN multilateral sanctions.  Professors George 
Lopez and David Cortright, both of the Sanctions and Security 
Center of the Fourth Freedom Forum and the Kroc Institute for 
International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame, 
are driving this initiative.  In mid-December, Lopez 
explained to USUN his belief that sanctions are in urgent 
need of renewal.  "Those of us who have been involved in this 
for a while," he said, "believe that this moment looks a lot 
like 1998, when the Iraq situation and toothless arms 
embargoes had created a palpable sense of sanctions fatigue 
at the Council and Secretariat staff level." 
 
¶3.  (SBU) Lopez identified five principal threats to UN 
sanctions: 
 
-- legal, administrative and political challenges that 
threaten the effectiveness and legitimacy of UN sanctions; 
 
-- ideological disagreements on how strong sanctions must be 
to inspire compliance; 
 
-- misperceptions about the humanitarian impact of sanctions 
and how this impact has been largely addressed by the shift 
from comprehensive to targeted sanctions; 
 
-- inadequate coordination of sanctions policy, especially 
within the UN Secretariat; and, 
 
-- inadequate engagement with the private sector. 
 
¶4.  (SBU) Lopez said he recognized the preoccupation of many 
states with "due process" issues, especially in the wake of a 
September 2008 European Court of Justice ruling that the EU's 
implementation of targeted sanctions violated human rights. 
(NOTE: Human rights critics have said that UN targeted 
sanctions procedures -- particularly those for listing and 
de-listing individuals -- are not fair and clear, and 
therefore violate the rights of designated individuals.  END 
NOTE).  Although he criticized the United States for 
approaching the due process debate too "defensively," he 
added that due process issues are only one piece of a broader 
crisis in UN sanctions. 
 
DECEMBER MEETING: SHARED SENSE OF CRISIS 
---------------------------------------- 
 
¶5.  (SBU) On December 5, 2008, Lopez, Cortright and other 
academics attended a meeting at the Canadian Mission to the 
UN to discuss the possibility of a new international 
sanctions process to address these challenges.  The meeting 
brought together diplomats from UN missions (mostly 
European), UN Secretariat staff, independent researchers and 
UN expert monitoring group members.  Although the P5 was 
explicitly not invited to this meeting, Lopez acknowledged 
that P5 buy-in (especially from the United States) was 
essential to moving forward on any process. 
 
¶6.  (SBU) Lopez reported that attendees to this meeting 
generally agreed that "sanctions are at a low ebb."  The 
participants, he said, discussed weak compliance with 
sanctions measures, a "perceived lack of unified purpose 
among Security Council members" on sanctions and poor 
implementation of targeted sanctions in failed state 
situations.  Reportedly, the group also considered the 
Security Council's insufficient follow-through on the 
implementation of sanctions; as an example, he noted, more 
than two years ago the Council imposed sanctions on 
recruiters of child solders in the Democratic Republic of the 
Congo (DRC) but to date it has not taken any action. 
 
¶7.  (SBU) Lopez said many participants raised due process 
issues.  He claimed, however, that during the meeting he and 
Professor Cortright sought to frame the concern about due 
process issues "in a broader context, as a way of breaking 
through the current impasse and engaging a wider range of 
states in finding practical solutions." 
 
A NEW PROCESS: WORKING GROUPS, BROAD DISUCSSIONS 
--------------------------------------------- --- 
 
¶8.  (SBU) Lopez noted how a series of international meetings 
earlier in this decade -- the "Bonn-Berlin Process" and the 
"Interlaken Process" -- brought together academics and 
diplomats to address the crisis in UN sanctions caused by 
negative experiences with sanctions in Iraq and Yugoslavia. 
Another such process, he proposed, could contain the 
following elements: 
 
-- A public forum for the UN community to launch the process 
(early 2009); 
 
-- The formation of six working groups to address: 1) 
domestic implementation of sanctions, 2) the establishment of 
an information management system for UN expert panels, 3) new 
sanctions coordination mechanisms in support of UN efforts to 
promote and support sanctions implementation by Member State 
and the private sector, 4) a public diplomacy strategy to 
overcome entrenched misperceptions about sanctions, 5) clear 
and fair procedures for listing and delisting, and 6) private 
sector engagement; 
 
-- A substantive conference to review working group reports 
and policy research in order to prioritize policy 
recommendations (fall 2009); 
 
-- Publication of policy briefs and published volumes on 
sanctions opportunities and challenges (2010). 
 
¶9.  (SBU) Lopez and Cortright are now looking for governments 
willing to fund such a process (they claim Canada is 
interested).  Lopez will return to New York in late January 
to continue discussions with UN missions, and he has 
expressed an interest in meeting with interested policymakers 
in Washington. 
 
¶10.  (SBU) COMMENT: USUN shares the assessment that UN 
sanctions are confronting serious new challenges to their 
legitimacy and effectiveness.  As a result, we risk the slow 
deterioration of one the few non-violent coercive tools the 
Security Council has at its disposal.  A growing sense of 
crisis, however, could provide an opening for the United 
States, in concert with our closest allies, to develop and 
put forth our own progressive vision for the next generation 
of UN sanctions.  END COMMENT. 
Khalilzad