Abstract

This article looks at the debate on whether human rights sanctions are effective. Sanctions are used as a measure for disciplining States whose behavior is considered unacceptable by disrupting their financial relations or by banning their trade. There is the argument amongst researchers that sanctions are ineffective, and when they do work, in specific areas, impacts to the population are not considered. Cell phone usage, the internet, and surveillance technologies have become a foreign policy issue because of the direct human rights implications. Korea does business as usual with the help of cell phone and internet, and China continues to use surveillance technologies that contribute to human rights issues. Three international administrations: United States Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor; the United Nations National Security Council; and the European Convention on Human Rights Sanctions have imposed sanctions that have either been ineffective or do more harm than good to the populations of targeted regimes. Administrations continue to employ sanctions due to overestimation of their coercive success; anticipation that sanctions as a first resort will enhance subsequent military threat credibility; sanctions will yield great domestic political benefits; or they to make a political statement, or affect human rights of populations under sanctioned regimes.