Smart Security Council? Analyzing the Effectiveness of Targeted Sanctions

In 2004 the United Nations Security Council initiated a Working Group on General Issues of Sanctions in order to increase the Councils effectiveness in terms of sanctions implementation. With this reform, the Council reacted to the harsh criticism from the UN against the conventional sanctions practice. It was the Security Councils latest endeavor to make ratified sanctions more punitive, coercive, and thus effective as far as causing compliance within its judicial framework is concerned. Summarized under the term smart sanctions, the Security Council tries to be more accurate in addressing sanctions thereby seeking not only to increase political effectiveness, but also to reduce unintended humanitarian suffering. While conventional sanctions are comprehensive and comprised of a variety of measures, such as trade boycotts and embargoes against the entire country, smart or targeted sanctions (as they are also termed) are selective, targeting only at certain areas or individuals. Consequently, sanctions are the practical expression of the Councils sovereignty. The Council lives and breathes through the ratification of sanctions, so their corroboration and proper enforcement reflect the organizations vitality. In short, if sanctions fail, the Council fails.So far scholars have accentuated technical questions in their research, such as how to engage in a successful bargaining process and how to imply isolation. They further focused on examining the compliance rate of targeted states. What has been slightly ignored is a potentially poor commitment by states to enforce sanctions in the first place. Quite possibly, the Security Council lacks ratification (what I term input legitimacy) and enforcement (what I term output legitimacy) of smart sanctions. Consequently, the effectiveness of smart sanctions does not necessarily have to be linked to the compliance rate of the targeted state. Instead, it might be connected to the commitment shown by the enforcing memb