• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.42 no.4
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• pp.1-25
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• 2020

The international community's sanctions against North Korea, triggered by North Korea's nuclear tests and by missile development in the country, are considered the strongest sanctions in history, banning exports of North Korea's major items and limiting imports of machinery and oil products. Accordingly, North Korea's trade volume decreased to the level of collapse after the sanctions, meaning that the sanctions against North Korea were considered to be effective. However, according to this paper, which analyzed the price fluctuations of refined petroleum products in North Korea through the methodology of an event study, the market prices of oil products were only temporarily affected by the sanctions and remained stable over the long run despite the restrictions on the volumes of refined petroleum products introduced. This can be explained by evidence that North Korea has introduced refined oil supplies that are not much different from those before the sanctions through its use of illegal transshipments even after the sanctions. With regard to strategic materials such as refined oil, the North Korean authorities are believed to be desperately avoiding sanctions by, for instance, finding loopholes in the sanctions to meet the minimum level of demand.

• Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.30-48
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• 2019

China has initiated a series of "economic sanctions" against South Korea, affecting Korean pop stars visiting China and Korean investments in China. Sanctions were imposed on South Korea in response to the decision of South Korea to deploy Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) in 2016. Furthermore, the Global Daily assembled local population to boycott Korean products and investments in China. However, the Chinese Foreign Ministry has never positively confirmed these activities as economic sanctions to South Korea related to the THAAD installation. In other words, the Chinese government singled a relatively weak message via these sanctions to South Korea. As a result, the THADD implementation continued in South Korea. In the paper, I interpret China's rationale to impost puzzling economic sanctions, which have a weak resolution, to South Korea and Taiwan. As signaling theory argues, economic sanctions with insufficient resolution, which are more likely to fail, is a more provocative foreign policy. By reviewing China's sanctions usage to South Korea and Taiwan, I propose arguments of bureaucratic competition to answer why China launched such sanctions to other countries: those are caused by domestic institutions who are seeking reward from the Communist Party of China. By comparing shifts of leadership between domestic agencies, the paper provides evidence to support the proposed argument. I also include two alternative explanations to strengthen the proposed argument, albeit connecting the paper with other two larger streams of research, which address analyses of China's aggressive foreign policies as well as the domestic politics of economic sanctions.

• Korea Trade Review
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• v.45 no.4
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• pp.83-93
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• 2020

Sanctions by the international community can increase their effectiveness with the participation of major countries with global economic influence, and can lead to efficient sanctions against the target countries when different sanctions procedures and methods can be operated in an integrated manner. To this end, it is being carried out with the aim of maximizing the performance of sanctions through collective economic solidarity by inducing international participation centered on the joint agenda, such as drawing up a resolution for sanctions. In this study, the definition and purpose of sanctions imposed by the international community and by major specific countries were explained and an empirical analysis was conducted on the economic impact of each sanctions, focusing on the United Nations Security Council and the United States, which directly implement them. Based on the selected research model, the effects of economic sanctions on the international community and countries subject to sanctions by certain countries were mutually compared and analyzed in the data. Finally, the conclusion obtained from this study was stated and the implications were derived and the possibility of further research expansion was described.

• Anayses & Alternatives
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.117-154
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• 2022

The purpose of this study is to verify the practical validity of financial sanctions, which has recently emerged as the most powerful form of economic sanctions preferred by U.S. foreign policy tool. Based on the theoretical discussion, analyse this study the trend of de-dollarization appearing in connection with financial sanctions and argue that the effectiveness of financial sanctions erode the dollar financial hegemony, which is the source of its power can be degraded, so that its effectiveness could not be so great as most people likely think about. After World War II, there has been an increasing tendency in the international community to favor economic sanctions over the use of military force as an effective means of foreign policy. Among these economic sanctions, a distinct feature that has recently appeared is the remarkable increase in the frequency of use of financial sanctions. The country that favors financial sanctions most is the United States. The reason is that they believe that the power of their own dollar financial hegemony can exert deadly pressure on other countries. Financial sanctions favored by the United States are said to have increased the effectiveness of sanctions by upgrading the pressure of sanctions to the next level. Nevertheless, financial sanctions have a side that underestimates the cost. This problem is found in the signs that the backlash from not only countries subject to financial sanctions but also many countries with interests in these countries is leading to a tendency to de-dollarization. This study will try to see how likely this de-dollarization trend is to offset the effectiveness of financial sanctions.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.27-50
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• 2024

This paper examines issues concerning conflicts between arbitral awards and public interests, particularly with respect to economic sanctions. Sanctions have been widely used by political entities, such as States and organizations, as means to promote public interests and to resolve cross-border disputes. In particular, economic sanctions have been increasingly more visible in recent years due to the accelerating fragmentation of the international communities, and their magnitude and range of the impacts have grown accordingly. For example, the U.S. and the EU have imposed economic sanctions on Russia and related persons in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The U.S. recently re-introduced a comprehensive economic sanction on Iran. One of the notable impacts of the sanctions, particularly economic sanctions, is that on international arbitration. Sanctions are essentially built on the notion of the protection of public interests, and public interests are some of the few grounds upon which recognition and enforceability or arbitral awards may be rejected. However, jurisprudence on such conflict between sanctions and arbitral awards have not been sufficiently addressed in Korea because court case and administrative decision records on this conflict have not been sufficiently accumulated. In this regard, this paper begins with offering a survey of the concept of public interests, economic and trade sanctions, arbitral awards and their enforceability, and the relationships between them. It then examines the mechanism upon which public interests, trade and economic sanctions may lead certain arbitral awards unenforceable. Next, the paper suggests judiciaries' balanced approach toward the public interests protected by trade and economic sanctions and the predictability and fairness in the enforcement of arbitral awards. Finally, this paper concludes with the methods of the implementation of such balanced approach.

• Strategy21
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• s.44
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• pp.254-290
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• 2018

Why did Kim Jong Un turn his foreign policy upside down in a sudden? US naval blockade became one of candidates for the reason since it had been threatened by Trump administration for the first time in December 2017. Has the blockades worked well like that in the international politic history? This paper reveals the effectiveness of naval blockade on sanctioning in the peacetime. This research analyzes three hypothetical arguments about the naval blockade based on the result of empirical tests with TIES Dataset. First, sanctions by blockading are more effective in gaining political benefits than the other economic sanctions. It was ranked the 4th effective way of sanction out of 9. And 56.3% of pacific naval blockades without packaged economic sanctions were succeeded, whereas the possibility of success increase up to 61.2% when blockade has been imposed in accordance with the other type of economic sanctions. Second, blockades deter military collisions, even war. When it comes to military provocation issue, blockading sanctions gain political interest far more than the other type of economic sanctions. The possibility of the success reaches up to 74%. Also, there wasn't any historical cases of war incurred by blockading sanctions within 5 years after the blockade end. Third, policy makers just need 1.2 years on average to see the end of sanctions when they choose the naval blockade as the method of imposing sanction on the adversary. It is impressively short span of time in achieving political goal compared to the other types of sanctions which are need 9 years on average. North East Asia sea could be the next stage for a naval blockade sooner or later. Because China and Japan not only possess capabilities of blockade but also have will to impose blockades to the others if conditions are set. And even the North Korea with lots of submerging forces could be a blockading threat in the specific area. So, the Republic of Korea has to pay more attention and be prepared for naval blockading sanction.

• Journal of International Area Studies (JIAS)
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.135-160
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• 2018

This study aims to predict the likely effect of economic sanctions on North Korea by examining case studies of Iran and Iraq. While UN sanctions against Iraq had immediate negative consequences for society, such as causing famine and reinforcing the authoritarian regime, sanctions against Iran had some productive consequences after they were reinforced by the U.S. and EU in significantly reduced oil exports and government expenditure, which in turn led to regime change and willingness to negotiate nuclear programs for economic recovery. Apart from these distinct differences, sanctions in both countries caused high inflation, shortage of necessary supplies, and increased unemployment. Case studies of Iran and Iraq also reveal that the sanctions disproportionately affected women and children, which implies that the recently reinforced economic sanctions of the U.S. and China against North Korea will cause more suffering of similarly socially marginalized groups in North Korea.

• Anayses & Alternatives
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.25-57
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• 2021

As the strategic competition between the United States and China for global hegemony intensifies, China is using economic sanctions against other countries more and more frequently. Republic of Korea, which has China as its largest trading partner but is an ally of the United States, is more likely to be a target of economic sanctions, as seen in China's retaliation toward its deployment of a THAAD missile-defense system. Against the background, this paper analyzes China's economic sanctions, especially focusing on its informality. China does not publicly declare economic sanctions in most cases, such as Korean one, in which the trade structure is in its favor and can take advantage of its position as a big buyer with huge markets. However, China responds in a more open and formal manner when it is related to its core interests, when it is impossible to exert substantial sanctions effect and when mutual disputes intensify and cannot maintain informality. Korea, which is vulnerable to China's informal economic sanctions, should prepare for them by analyzing the characteristics of China's economic sanctions in depth and thinking about various strategies and measures in advance.

• Strategy21
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• s.46
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• pp.239-276
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• 2020

The failure of early economic sanctions aimed at hurting the overall economies of targeted states called for a more sophisticated design of economic sanctions. This paved way for the advent of 'smart sanctions,' which target the supporters of the regime instead of the public mass. Despite controversies over the effectiveness of economic sanctions as a coercive tool to change the behavior of a targeted state, the transformation from 'comprehensive sanctions' to 'smart sanctions' is gaining the status of a legitimate method to impose punishment on states that do not conform to international norms, the nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction in this particular context of the paper. The five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council proved that it can come to an accord on imposing economic sanctions over adopting resolutions on waging military war with targeted states. The North Korean nuclear issue has been the biggest security threat to countries in the region, even for China out of fear that further developments of nuclear weapons in North Korea might lead to a 'domino-effect,' leading to nuclear proliferation in the Northeast Asia region. Economic sanctions had been adopted by the UNSC as early as 2006 after the first North Korean nuclear test and has continually strengthened sanctions measures at each stage of North Korean weapons development. While dubious of the effectiveness of early sanctions on North Korea, recent sanctions that limit North Korea's exports of coal and imports of oil seem to have an impact on the regime, inducing Kim Jong-un to commit to peaceful talks since 2018. The purpose of this paper is to add a variable to the factors determining the success of economic sanctions on North Korea: preventing North Korea's evasion efforts by conducting illegal transshipments at sea. I first analyze the cause of recent success in the economic sanctions that led Kim Jong-un to engage in talks and add the maritime element to the argument. There are three conditions for the success of the sanctions regime, and they are: (1) smart sanctions, targeting commodities and support groups (elites) vital to regime survival., (2) China's faithful participation in the sanctions regime, and finally, (3) preventing North Korea's maritime evasion efforts.

• Korea Trade Review
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• v.48 no.1
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• pp.165-191
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• 2023

The US and EU have imposed energy sanctions on the Russian oil and gas sector in response to the Ukraine crisis. One of the key measures is to cut oil and gas imports from Russia. The US and EU are both the senders of sanctions against Russia. However, there is a fundamental difference between them. While the US is the net oil and gas exporter, most EU member states are heavily dependent on Russian oil and gas. If the US and other major oil and gas exporting countries can replace Russia in the EU energy market, the effectiveness of energy sanctions against Russia can be guaranteed. Our result shows that it is difficult for the major oil and gas exporters to fully replace Russia in the short run because of the lack of additional production capacity and infrastructure. We conclude that the US and EU's energy sanctions against Russia can not guarantee its effectiveness. We argue that other measures, such as diplomacy, should be taken to settle the conflicts in Ukraine.