Smarten sanctions

Sanctions, it is sometimes said, come somewhere between a soldier and a statement - a thought that may have crossed the minds of EU foreign ministers yesterday when, in short order, they lifted punitive measures on Libya and tightened existing ones on Burma. The timing was coincidental: after 11 years one set of sanctions had run its course, Libya having at last complied with UN demands on the Lockerbie bombing and, as a bonus, surrendered its rickety arsenal of weapons of mass destruction; the batch imposed on Burma is designed to pressure the military regime to ease up on human rights and free Aung San Suu Kyi, the democracy activist whose dignified struggle has caught the imagination of the world. Both sets of sanctions highlight the advantages and flaws of this imperfect tool for imposing international standards. Another important aspect was underlined last week when the Iraq Survey Group concluded that UN sanctions against Saddam Hussein had been collapsing before last year's invasion, a reminder that their failure was exploited by US hawks pressing for military action.

Recent years have seen a growing recognition that sanctions are a blunt instrument that can easily hurt the wrong people. Success in undermining apartheid in South Africa gave way to disaster in Iraq as the embargo imposed after the invasion of Kuwait impoverished and humiliated a generation of ordinary people while giving a cruel dictatorship a further instrument of control. The Libya sanctions, on the oil industry and air travel, were less draconian but far more effective. They isolated the country, provided a framework around which a settlement could be reached and pressured Colonel Muammar Gadafy into reducing his involvement in terrorism. Crucially, though, the US was able to maintain the support of other countries.

Political will of this kind is lacking in Burma. The Asian country should be a soft target since few outsiders have a stake in its economy. Even so, France negotiated loopholes allowing it to continue investing in the oil industry. The latest measures include a visa ban on high-ranking generals and a block on loans to state-owned businesses. Europe has imposed similar "smart" sanctions against Robert Mugabe and his senior henchmen in Zimbabwe. But the EU and the US are still at odds over whether to lift the arms embargo imposed on China after the 1989 Tiananmen massacre: when the stakes are very high, only the lowest common denominator can usually be agreed. Still, even unsatisfactory sanctions are preferable to war.