THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND INTERNATIONAL TRADE
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Thursday, October 27, 2022
The Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade met with videoconference this day at 11:30 a.m. [ET], to conduct a comprehensive review of the provisions and operation of the Sergei Magnitsky Law, and the Special Economic Measures Act.
Senator Peter Harder (Deputy Chair) in the chair.
[Translation]
The Deputy Chair: Good morning, colleagues. My name is Peter Harder, I am a senator from Ontario and the Deputy Chair of the Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade. In the absence of the chair, Senator Peter Boehm, and at his request, I will be chairing today’s meeting.
Before we begin, I invite the members of the committee present today to introduce themselves, beginning on my left.
[English]
Senator Richards: Dave Richards, New Brunswick.
Senator Boniface: Gwen Boniface, Ontario.
[Translation]
Senator Dalphond: Pierre Dalphond from Quebec.
[English]
Senator Woo: Yuen Pau Woo, British Columbia.
Senator Coyle: Mary Coyle, Nova Scotia.
Senator Greene: Steve Greene, Nova Scotia.
Senator Ravalia: Mohammed Ravalia, Newfoundland and Labrador.
The Deputy Chair: Thanks very much. Today we continue the review we began yesterday of the provisions and operation of the Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act, also known as the Sergei Magnitsky Law, and of the Special Economic Measures Act, or SEMA, pursuant to section 16 of the Sergei Magnitsky Law.
We welcome two academics today with expertise on sanctions. First, we welcome via video conference Dr. Clara Portela, Professor of Political Science at the Faculty of Law at the University of Valencia in Spain, where she is currently the Konrad Adenauer Visiting Scholar on Transatlantic Relations at the Centre for European Studies at Carleton University here in Ottawa. With us in the room, we welcome Thomas Juneau, Associate Professor, Public and International Affairs, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ottawa. Welcome to you both. We thank you for being with us today.
Before we hear your remarks and proceed to questions and answers, I wish to ask members of the committee and witnesses in the room to please refrain from leaning too close into your microphones or to remove your earpiece when doing so. This will avoid any sound feedback that could negatively impact the staff who are monitoring this committee and others in the room who might be wearing an earpiece for interpretation.
We are now ready to hear opening remarks, which will be followed by questions. We will start with Dr. Portela.
Clara Portela, Konrad Adenauer Visiting Scholar on Transatlantic Relations, Centre for European Studies, Carleton University, as an individual: Thank you very much. I would like to extend my gratitude to the Senate for inviting me to provide input into today’s discussion.
First of all, what I would like to do in my presentation is to give a sense of the most recent developments in the sanctions universe or the global trends as far as sanctions are concerned.
Second, I will zoom into the experience of the European Union in order to see how the EU has been responding or contributing to these trends and what lessons could possibly be extracted from these experiences for Canada as a sender of international sanctions.
First, what are the most recent developments on the sanctions scene? For a long time, we have had a situation in which the United Nations Security Council has been imposing sanctions. This was not the most prolific practice worldwide, but it was certainly the most important practice from a global point of view.
Then, there was the unilateral sanctions practice by states and also by some regional organizations. Although here, the European Union stands out as a sender, first because it is the regional organization that imposes, by far, the largest number of sanctions regimes worldwide. Second, it is the only regional organization that imposes sanctions against third countries, while other regional organizations, such as those located in Africa or Latin America, have a habit of imposing sanctions against its own members, but they do not impose sanctions externally.
Basically, the EU here is a bit of an exception because it is a composite actor that also has an autonomous sanctions practice. At the same time, it comprises 27 member states. It is certainly one of the closest partners of Canada when it comes to the imposition of sanctions, alongside the United States and, since its withdrawal from the European Union, the U.K. I think there were some allusions made yesterday to the fact that most sanctions coordination nowadays takes place in the framework of consultations among these four actors.
Now, I was talking about the fact that the UN Security Council is responsible for the most important sanctions practice in the world because it is authorized to impose sanctions that are mandatory on every state in the world. They are the only actor that is recognized universally as having the authority to impose sanctions, particularly in the global south.
Basically, this sanctions practice has witnessed a decline recently. The sanctions practice of the UN Security Council became activated with the end of the Cold War, and for the first decade of the post-Cold War period, in the 1990s, 16 new sanctions regimes were imposed. There was more than one new sanctions regime per year back then.
If we look at the period that starts in 1990 and goes up until the year 2015, we realize that there were a total of 25 sanctions regimes. The frequency of sanctions imposition by the UN Security Council has been decreasing over time. Then, starting in 2015, we actually see a turning point toward an even less frequent rhythm of sanctions imposition. There have only been three sanctions regimes imposed since then. The most recent sanctions regime on Haiti was adopted just a few days ago.
But in any case, the trends, if we look at UN sanctions practice, is that it is decreasing. There is a very specific reason for that, and that is the growing reticence of the Russian Federation to agree to any new sanctions regimes.
The moment in which Russia became the target of Western sanctions in the year 2014, after the annexation of Crimea, it became far less favourable to the imposition of new sanctions regimes or even to the renewal of previous sanctions regimes.
What this promises is that the UN Security Council cannot be expected to become much more active in future than what we are seeing at the moment, whereby perhaps a new sanctions regime comes up every three years and not much more frequently than that.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you for your opening remarks. We will get the rest of your views in responses to questions.
Ms. Portela: Thank you.
Thomas Juneau, Associate Professor, Public and International Affairs, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ottawa, as an individual: Thank you for the invitation to speak to you today.
Unlike Professor Portela, I am not an expert on sanctions in the technical sense. What I will do is share five lessons that I took from watching sanctions on Iran for more than 15 years, first at the Department of National Defence and now at the University of Ottawa.
Number one is that sanctions are easy to announce but hard to implement. Monitoring and enforcing sanctions is very labour intensive. Canada has a reputation among our friends but also among our rivals for not enforcing sanctions well. Part of the reason is a lack of resources.
While I share in many cases the intent of the government or opposition parties to impose more sanctions on Iran, Russia or others, whether through SEMA, the Sergei Magnitsky Law or other tools, I invite the committee to reflect on the reality that we already cannot fulfill our current commitments, let alone new ones. This irritates our allies, a point that we misunderstand, I think, and it sends a message to the bad guys that we are not serious about penalizing them. This is a message that they hear loud and clear.
The bottom line is we need to invest resources. There is no other way around that. The $76 million announced last week or two weeks ago as part of the package of sanctions on Iran is a positive first step, keeping in mind that it will take years to generate those capabilities. You need to hire people. You need to get them security clearances in a context where we have a massive backlog. You need to train them for highly specialized positions, et cetera.
Lesson number two is that sanctions are easy to announce but hard to withdraw; they take on a life of their own politically, legally and bureaucratically, and sometimes the day comes when the cost to us — not on the bad guy, but us — exceeds the benefit, but removing them becomes very difficult.
As you reflect on the future of sanctions, I also urge you to think about processes to remove sanctions, when it becomes in our interest to do that, to avoid tying the hands of future governments, even though sometimes that may be tempting.
Lesson number three is that sanctions, especially the sweeping kind, often have negative, unintended consequences. They can entrench authoritarianism and corruption. In the Iran case, the IRGC in Iran has been able to build an economic empire and, therefore, has become much more powerful as part of its effort to avoid sanctions. Yes, sanctions have hurt the regime, as intended, but it is not clear to me that the benefits for us exceed the costs. At a minimum, we need to think about this more transparently.
Lesson number four is that for these first three reasons, in many cases, as a general rule I tend to support targeted sanctions much more than the sweeping, blunt kind. They are less resource-intensive, keeping in mind point number one that we are very much overstretched, and they are more surgical in their impact and can — but not always — minimize broader, unintended negative costs, including humanitarian suffering, I should add.
That’s why, in the case of Iran, I thought that listing the IRGC as a terrorist entity under the Criminal Code — something that one opposition party and a number of civil society activists support — was appealing in principle but not a good idea in practice because of these first three reasons.
The fifth and final lesson is that in Canada, public discourse on sanctions tends to emphasize the foreign policy angle. Of course, that’s the topic or theme of your committee. How can we make a difference in the world? We very much have that missionary spirit when we think about sanctions.
But usually, Canadian sanctions have little and sometimes no impact from a foreign policy angle or perspective. Where sanctions do serve our interests as much, and sometimes more than on the foreign policy side, is on the national security side which, for a variety of reasons, is not something we talk a lot about publicly in this country.
Again, on the Iranian case, are we going to change Iranian foreign policy with our sanctions? No, we are not. We would like to think we will, but we won’t. Where we can make a difference is with regard to Iranian regime officials and their families, for example, who park financial assets in Canada. That’s a problem. Iranian regime officials and affiliated thugs intimidate the Iranian-Canadian diaspora, and that’s a problem. In that sense, targeted sanctions — not the sweeping kind — have a chance of at least blunting or countering that, though they will not eliminate it.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you, Professor Juneau and Professor Portela. We will now begin our opening round of questions.
Senator Woo: Thank you to our witnesses. I wonder if either or both of you might comment on what I think is a new development of sanctioning financial transactions generally, but specifically sanctioning the foreign reserves of targeted countries. I think about the United States freezing, seizing and repurposing the central bank reserves of Afghanistan, and distributing them in a way that the American government had seen fit.
What is your opinion on this direction, if it is indeed a direction we are going in? Should it be something that Canada should also adopt? What do you think are the consequences for the financial system broadly?
Ms. Portela: I can confirm that this is a trend. We have witnessed this on several occasions. What are the consequences? The consequences are that this really gives a very powerful tool to those countries that are able to freeze these foreign reserves. It is one of the most powerful tools at the disposal of the senders.
Mr. Juneau: My response to that will be limited because the financial side of sanctions — especially when it doesn’t concern Iran — is not my area of expertise.
I would just emphasize two points that are related to things that I said in my presentation. The first is the issue of unfreezing, whenever it becomes necessary, which can be very difficult politically but also bureaucratically and procedurally.
If you look at other cases of sanctions where, for whatever reason, the nature of the government changes and, for whichever side, the costs exceed the benefits, governments feel cornered when it comes time rationally, strategically or morally to remove that sanction, including unfreezing assets. That can be very difficult.
I find that in the debate on sanctions in this country, but in other countries too, we really don’t think in the long term in terms of when it will be time to suspend that sanction and how we will do that. That’s my first point.
My second point is that is a good example, speaking generally, of the kind of sanction that — I’m not saying don’t do it, but I’m saying that we need to try as best we can to have a careful cost‑benefit analysis. Because the benefits can be clear if, for strategic, diplomatic or security reasons, you want to penalize that government; that’s legitimate. What is the extent of humanitarian consequences that imposes? From a moral perspective, that can be problematic, but it can also be problematic from a strategic perspective. If you penalize the population of a certain country, are you bringing it on your side? In some cases you might want to do that. In other cases you entrench corruption and authoritarianism, again, as I mentioned. Afghanistan, if I understand correctly, is a good case of that where you are really entrenching underground networks to smuggle, et cetera, which may not be in our interests.
Senator Ravalia: Thank you to our witnesses. My question is for Ms. Portela. To what extent does embedded government political philosophy impact the efficacy of sanctions that are imposed by a composite group such as the EU? I am thinking of the current philosophy of the Government of Hungary, the recent change in Italy in terms of the elections, compounded by the chaos of Brexit. If there is a change in government and political philosophy but the composite group has imposed sanctions, are there often vulnerabilities in this regard in maintaining a coherent approach?
Ms. Portela: Most certainly this is the case. Actually, the biggest hurdle that the EU has when it comes to framing its own sanctions policy is the fact that it operates with unanimity. You actually need to get the agreement of all 27 countries; each of them has a veto. In particular, the case of Hungary has been especially problematic because, on the one hand, it is agreeing to the sanctions packages in the context of the council, but then it is speaking negatively. It is spreading a negative opinion of the sanctions that the EU is imposing at the domestic level. Right now this is one of the biggest challenges the EU is facing. It is not just the possibility that specific countries with specific interests might obstruct the adoption of new sanctions, but in the specific case of Hungary, there was even an attempt to undermine the legitimacy of the sanctions at the domestic level.
This is actually an isolated incident because, for the time being, the EU has been quite effective in adopting sanctions rounds, despite the heterogeneity within the council, particularly if we consider that most of its member states do not have a tradition of imposing sanctions within their national foreign policies. Most countries within the EU have only imposed sanctions in the framework of the EU. Taking into account that any country might actually veto and bring about the collapse of any sanctions regime at any time and the sanctions regimes are renewed every 6 or 12 months, it is pretty remarkable that this coherence has been maintained.
It is a permanent challenge that is always there. It is the elephant in the room. It is always present. In any case, the consequences that this has for any comparison with U.S. or Canadian sanctions is that there is much less flexibility because every new measure needs to be discussed and agreed upon. The EU is not and cannot be very fast in coming up with new measures, which is not the case in Canada. In Canada, the government has the flexibility and the ability to act much faster.
Probably the most obvious consequence of the fact that every new sanctions wave and every new sanctions measure requires the agreement of 27 member states is the fact that EU sanctions policy is more moderate than that of the U.S. It follows the lead of the U.S. but always with a distance. It thinks twice before blacklisting individuals. The European blacklists are not as long as those of the U.S. and generally the sanctions packages are not as far-reaching as those of the U.S. This basically accounts for the discrepancy between U.S. and EU sanctions policy.
I think that these are really the most important aspects to highlight.
Senator M. Deacon: Thank you to the witnesses for being here today. This question is for both of you. Yesterday, we got into some discussion about how effective sanctions are at curbing behaviour and bringing certain groups to the table by putting pressure on them. I would like you to comment on that, but more specifically, is there a distinction on the effectiveness of the sanctions when it’s for certain things? For instance, regarding human rights abuses within a state, such as Iran, which is attacking its own people, or when it is an open conflict, such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, is there a nuance there in which kind of scenario sanctions are most effective? We often hear that we just look at each situation case by case. I’m wondering if either one of you have some thoughts on that. Perhaps we can start with Ms. Portela.
Ms. Portela: Thank you very much for this question. Indeed, I think this is one of the most important questions, but I actually have a point to raise as far as effectiveness is concerned. What is our standard of success? When do we consider sanctions to be effective? Because the most important factor for every evaluation is first to determine what our objective is.
If human rights abuses have been perpetrated and we impose sanctions, what action exactly are we expecting? Do we want the perpetrators to be brought to justice in the country where the events have taken place? Do we want an indictment by the International Criminal Court? Do we want the violence or the abuses to stop? How effective the sanctions are really depends on the objectives.
I am afraid that, simply on the basis of the existing legislation, it is not very clear — neither to the general public nor to perpetrators or victims — what exactly the listing of these perpetrators is meant to achieve. Since we don’t have any explicit goal or any prescription as to what exactly we want to see, it is very difficult to assess whether the sanctions are effective or not.
We can always argue that they have been effective in terms of deterring similar behaviour from third countries. Perhaps the same violations do not repeat themselves in the same country for a period of five years, or we see no escalation. Depending on how we define success, particularly based on the objective of the sanctions regime, we can claim that they have been successful or not. That’s actually something that makes it difficult to give a conclusive response to this question.
Mr. Juneau: First, I fully agree that it is extremely difficult to measure based on lack of clarity on the objective and lack of information. I would say even based on the case of Iran, there is a debate on whether sanctions pushed Iran to negotiate on a nuclear deal with the JCPOA that came up in 2015. There are some who say Iran would have done the nuclear deal anyway because it was in its interests. How much impact the sanctions had is very hard to measure because you don’t have the counterfactual.
What did work with those sanctions is they were multilateral, they were not just from the U.S. and they were enforced. So you had Malaysia, India, South Korea and Turkey — all of those countries that Iran normally would have used to evade American sanctions, they were, to a large extent — but not 100% — participating in enforcement. Even then, it’s far from a guarantee.
I would say that in the case of the objective, if it’s not changing behaviour, which is often the way Western governments frame it publicly, in practice, the impact they have is to hurt your adversary. We don’t frame it like that, but in many cases, that’s what we try to do and we succeed a lot.
Senator Richards: Thank you to the witnesses. I’m going to ask the same kind of question about Iran. You said, Mr. Juneau, that they are becoming more economically powerful, so that means their own people, as we have seen in the last three months, are suffering. I am wondering if that is a test case of how faulty sanctions can be. That’s my question to you.
To Ms. Portela, you mentioned Haiti, and I don’t even know who is in control in Haiti anymore, so what would these sanctions be against?
Mr. Juneau: In the case of Iran, there is quite a bit of literature on the impact of sanctions, even if it’s always difficult to quantify for the reasons that Professor Portela explained very well in the previous question.
The debate on Iran is to find the balance between targeted sanctions and sweeping sanctions. Targeted sanctions can work quite well, including for some of the reasons that I mentioned in my opening remarks.
The challenge with the more sweeping kind of sanctions, the de facto trade embargo that the U.S. is trying to impose on Iran — at least on some of its commodities — is the cost-benefit analysis. I’m not sure what the answer to that is. We are hurting the government. We are starving it of oil money, which weakens it and prevents it from spending money on its foreign policy supporting Hezbollah and other groups. That is consistent with the objectives that we should have.
On the other hand, it’s hurting the population. What is the impact of that? There is the humanitarian dimension, which is dramatic. Are we pushing the population to protest against their government? That’s a very crude and raw way to frame it, but it has to be part of the question. I’m not sure what the answer to that is. These are difficult questions.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you. Professor Portela, please tell us who is in charge in Haiti.
Ms. Portela: The UN sanctions imposed on Haiti are not against the government or anyone who is in charge; they’re against gangs that are terrorizing the population.
This connects with a long tradition in the post-Cold War practice of the UN Security Council of targeting and blacklisting non-state actors. This has already been going on for a long time. This is probably something that has facilitated the adoption of these sanctions.
We increasingly see rebel groups and individuals on blacklists that are not connected to government but are basically non-state actors, and if they are considered to be threats to international peace and security — or peace and security, period — they can get blacklisted. That’s basically the story in Haiti at the moment.
Senator Richards: Thank you very much.
Senator Coyle: My question is for Mr. Juneau. I appreciated your very concise points. I would like to drill down on this second point, which is that it’s hard to withdraw sanctions.
Here we are reviewing these acts now, so this is a chance to see what should have been in them in the first place and, perhaps, what could be added to them in terms of mechanisms as well as legislation. If you could get into more detail on what you might have said on that if you had a little more time, I would appreciate it.
Mr. Juneau: That’s a very good question. The specific case that I was referring to, but far from the only one, is the Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act, which was passed in 2012. It allows the government to list states as sponsors of terrorism. Two are on that list: Iran and Syria. That leads to a range of consequences, including sanctions and measures more broadly.
The issue that I have with the Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act is not to disagree with the fact that Iran is a state sponsor of terrorism — it is, that’s a problem and we should do something about it. The issue is by listing a state as a sponsor of terrorism, it’s difficult to remove it from that list when we should decide it’s in our interest or that listing has consequences that make other initiatives very difficult.
In this case, listing a state as a sponsor of terrorism is procedurally quite simple. It’s the result of an order-in-council. There is no change to legislation or anything like that. Bureaucratically, it’s quite easy.
The problem, which came up when the government wanted to reopen embassies with Iran after 2015, was the listing itself does not prevent the opening of embassies, which I think was useful because you need to talk to the bad guys in blunt terms. Iran said, “Okay, but you need to remove us from that list.” Canada politically could not do it. Politically, it amounts to saying Iran is not a sponsor of terrorism, which is factually inaccurate and politically extremely unappealing. The government had its hands tied behind its back, when it wanted to reopen embassies with Iran because it assessed it was in its interests, which I think was the right move, but they couldn’t do it. I am simplifying things because other factors were making that reopening of embassies complicated; it was not only that element.
For me, the broader point, if you extrapolate, is when you impose sanctions, they take on a life of their own. They become very difficult to remove, and they have unintended consequences — or intended consequences by the legislator at the time, but unintended for future governments. Having a hand tied behind your back, in some cases, can damage your broader interests. I’m not saying don’t do it; I’m saying to be very careful when you think about that over the long term.
Ms. Portela: The sanctions practice of the UN and also of the EU has adopted a habit of including a sunset clause in every sanctions regulation. This has the advantage of making it easier to terminate the sanctions regime when it is necessary, so it’s never defined as an open-ended exercise. The benefit is that every year there is a compulsory review of how that sanctions regime is going and whether the listings are still relevant. It provides an opportunity to take stock that otherwise wouldn’t be there.
One of the biggest debates that has been taking place in the sanctions domain in the EU over recent years has been precisely whether humanitarian exceptions are sufficient to allow humanitarian operators to work in the countries that are under EU sanctions. In every sanctions regime, every regulation must make sure that, first, there is sufficient support for companies to be able to implement them properly so that there is sufficient information to support them, and second, the humanitarian exemptions are ample enough to allow for humanitarian action to continue. So perhaps these are things that should be included in every regulation and be taken into account when reviewing the existing legislation.
Senator Boniface: Thank you both for being here.
Mr. Juneau, I’m interested in your reference to the targeted sanctions versus the broader sanctions. I’m thinking of it through the eyes of a government, and it doesn’t matter which one. It would seem to me that it’s more politically feasible to go broader than to try to explain targeted sanctions. In your research, did you find anything in terms of what compels governments to do that?
Mr. Juneau: If I understand your question correctly, I did not specifically look at it in terms of public opinion support. On that, I don’t have numbers. I’m not sure they exist. That would be an interesting question.
Part of the point I made briefly at the opening is I understand why it may be appealing for governments to go for sweeping sanctions. Is there more public support? I don’t know. But going again to the case of Iran, you have a number of stakeholders within the opposition and within civil society who are making a vocal case for listing the IRGC under the Criminal Code.
Emotionally, I absolutely understand where that appeal comes from, especially when, to be specific, you see that coming from the families of the victims of Flight PS752. It’s much more simple, sweeping and sensational in terms of its impact.
One of the problems was that the government would not be able to implement that. It would not be able to enforce that because of the labour intensity of following up on sanctions to literally hundreds of thousands of IRGC conscripts, many of whom already live here as permanent residents or citizens. Regarding enforcement in terms of border security, when individuals show up at the border, what if an individual was a cook in the IRGC in 1997 as a conscript? Do you enforce sanctions or not? The answer then is to have exemptions. In practice, again, that doesn’t work because these exemptions impose massive requirements on the intelligence community to actually know if the individual was a cook or not or if he killed people with his own hands and so on. That’s why the enforcement is extremely difficult.
Politically, the problem is that it’s very difficult for the government to say, on the bottom line, “Sorry, we can’t do it.” Politically, that’s not appealing, and I get that.
Senator Boniface: Okay. To our witness from beautiful Valencia, Spain — how fortunate you are — can you give me a sense of what you see coming forth for Haiti, given all the complicated circumstances there?
Ms. Portela: Thank you. Actually, I’m not an expert on Haiti. I was just highlighting the fact that very recently the UN Security Council has imposed new sanctions, which had not happened for a long time. It is rather exceptional that now a new sanctions regime has been imposed.
Basically, my prediction is that there will be more sanctions imposed on Haiti, unless violence stops and the social situation stabilizes. For the action of gangs to merit the imposition of sanctions by the UN Security Council, obviously the situation is very acute. There might be a need for stepping up, for intervention. That’s all I can say. Thank you.
[Translation]
Senator Dalphond: My question is for both of our very interesting witnesses. According to your research, what are the most effective sanctions that have been put in place in the past? Why do you consider them effective? What results have they helped achieve? Can we start with Professor Juneau’s answer?
Mr. Juneau: Keeping in mind Professor Portela’s important caveat in response to another question a few minutes ago, the issue of effectiveness depends a great deal on the initial goal, which is not always clear or transparently announced.
If the objective is to penalize our adversary, which is often, in practice, the main objective even if it is not called that, sanctions against Iran have been a huge success. Before the revolution, Iran produced 6 million barrels of oil per day. Since the revolution 43 years ago, Iran has never reached 4 million barrels and has often produced 3 million, 2.5 million or 2 million barrels of oil per day.
If we do a little math, the economic cost of this forced production cut to Iran is hundreds of billions of dollars per year. If we determine that the objective of the sanctions was to hurt Iran, we can conclude that we have strangled this country economically, keeping in mind the consequences that the situation has caused in terms of humanitarian suffering. In terms of strangling a hostile government and taking money out of its coffers, it was a huge success. One can extend the discussion to sanctions beyond the oil embargo, but this illustrates the power of what has been imposed on Iran.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you.
Ms. Portela: Thank you very much for your question. Since we are in a hurry, I will speak in English, as I will be able to speak more quickly.
[English]
There are a couple of cases that are generally recognized as having been effective. The most consensual one would be South Africa because there was an end to the apartheid regime, which was the original rationale for the imposition of sanctions. This is already long ago, but it’s basically considered the beacon in terms of sanctions effectiveness.
There is also a good case to be made — and perhaps Professor Juneau will have a different opinion here — that the sanctions on Iran were effective in bringing about the Iran deal because they gave an incentive to Iran to sit down at the negotiating table and negotiate in good faith and with a written agreement, basically.
Then there are also some recent cases in which one could claim that there have been successes for sanctions. In most cases, they had to do with African countries located in sub-Saharan Africa that agreed to organizing elections after development aid had been interrupted or the suspension of development aid had been threatened. This is a specific type of country with a specific type of sanctions tool.
If we look at the case of Uzbekistan in 2005, where sanctions were imposed requesting the launch of an investigation into the Andijan events where a mass protest was violently repressed, the investigation actually took place. Perhaps we can see that there have been certain cases where at least limited objectives have been met.
Also, in the case of Belarus in 2016, the EU terminated its sanctions regime after a large number of political prisoners were released. There have been at least certain cases where an argument can be made that they were effective.
But again, the big question here is: What was the objective of these sanctions regimes? In many cases, this was not really spelled out. If we consider that the objective of the sanctions regime on Belarus was to bring about a democratic transition, then the sanctions failed.
To make things worse, if we look at cases like Myanmar or Belarus, where sanctions have been lifted because they were considered to at least have brought about some improvements — for example, in the case of Myanmar, a transition to a civilian government instead of a purely military government — what we witnessed is that shortly afterwards there was a relapse. The Rohingya massacres taking place in Myanmar brought a new sanctions regime to that country. Then Belarus also adopted a number of very hostile and repressive policies toward its own population, so these sanctions regimes were reinstated, which also puts an interrogation mark on whether they had been effective in the first place.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you, professor.
Senator Greene: Thank you very much. My question has partially been asked by Senator Boniface, but I’ll ask it in a different way.
What do you think is the role of the imposition of sanctions? What is the role of public opinion in the host country, given the fact that sanctions have to be rooted in law, which is something different than public opinion? To what extent is public opinion a factor?
Mr. Juneau: Well, as I said in response to the previous question, I’m not aware of research specifically on that, either on the academic side or by public opinion firms. I don’t have a firm answer to that. I would leave time for my colleague because she may have a broader perspective.
Ms. Portela: Thank you very much. I understand that the host country is the sender country and not the target country. Is that correct?
Senator Greene: Yes.
Ms. Portela: Okay. Basically, there is a strand of research on the purposes of sanctions that actually sees the rationale for the imposition of sanctions in increasing the popularity of the sanction-sending government because it is seen to be trying to resolve a situation and deal with a situation so as not to appear inactive.
There are researchers who actually highlight that sanctions are often not imposed with the idea of bringing about a policy change in the target country, but they are rather meant to support the popularity of the sender government.
This research has been done specifically with regard to the popularity of presidents in the U.S., given that the U.S. is the main sender of sanctions worldwide. Basically, the results of that research tended to support the idea that it enhanced the popularity of presidents to be seen as dealing with a crisis by imposing sanctions.
It has also been highlighted that this is an effect of sanctions — giving the image that the government is active and proactive and is tackling issues. This is an effect that takes place automatically without necessarily having to see a modification in the situation on which they are imposed.
Another aspect of the popularity of sanctions in sending countries has to do precisely with the previous questions on the preference for targeted sanctions. International public opinion, specifically in organized civil society, didn’t react well to comprehensive sanctions that have been imposed in the past, such as, notably, the full embargo imposed on Iraq brought about such a high level of suffering in the population, increasing levels of morbidity, child mortality and really gave the civilian population such a hard time, particularly given that the population was not directly responsible for nuclear proliferation or for the invasion of Kuwait. It was regarded as basically being a population that was innocent but was still suffering the consequences of comprehensive embargos.
One of the reasons why targeted sanctions are preferred over comprehensive embargos is that they make the sanctions much more palatable to the population of the sending countries and, needless to say, the population of the target country and to the global south, which is generally quite negatively disposed toward unilateral sanctions.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you, professor.
Senator Woo: Dr. Portela, could you send us a reference to the research that you just referred to on public opinion concerning sanctions in the sending country? That would be very helpful for us.
The Deputy Chair: I take it by your nod that you will do that, professor? Thank you.
Senator Woo: Thank you so much. Could I ask either of the witnesses to comment on the efficacy of sanctions on the DPRK — North Korea — in terms of the objective of either improving the human rights situation in North Korea and/or improving peace and security on the Korean peninsula?
Mr. Juneau: Not being an expert on North Korea, I don’t have specific views on that. I would emphasize the point I made earlier that sanctions on North Korea have not changed its behaviour. They have strangulated the regime, which is the underlying objective, as it is with Iran and in other cases, but I would leave that to my colleague.
Ms. Portela: Thank you very much. In terms of compelling a change in the behaviour of the leadership, I think that it is pretty obvious that not much has been achieved.
If we look at the sanctions that have been imposed on North Korea, they are clearly the most comprehensive sanctions that are in place at the moment. They have managed to ban 90% of trade according to calculations by economists. This is often forgotten when we hear in the media that Russia is the most heavily sanctioned country in the world. That’s not the case. It’s actually North Korea.
Here, probably something that tends to be overlooked is the fact that every time the EU, and particularly the UN and the U.S., come up with a new sanction measure — North Korea has really become the testing ground of more and more sophisticated sanctions — the North Korean government thinks of a way of evading these sanctions, and it is actually pretty sophisticated in its response.
We are not always dealing with the same sort of targets, but, precisely, North Korea has also been very creative. It devotes quite a lot of its time and effort to think of ways to circumvent ever more sophisticated measures.
In order to achieve better effectiveness for these measures, one should get a better sense of how they calculate and what sort of evasion techniques they come up with. This is probably the most important aspect about the North Korean sanctions. It’s very difficult to claim that this has brought about any changes.
Now, in terms of effectiveness, perhaps the only thing that could conceivably be argued is that by preventing the flux of new technology and of new income, the sanctions might actually reduce the intensity or the speed of missiles and weapons of mass destruction programs. Then we are using a different definition of efficacy, which is not about bringing about a change in behaviour but actually about impeding, creating an obstacle or simply making it much more expensive and much harder to develop new weapons programs.
Mr. Juneau: I have a tiny point to build on something that my colleague mentioned on the issue of sanctions invasion. Sanctions evasion is a massive business, and it is a skill that governments under sanction develop and then export. That is not well understood, but it’s fascinating and very important.
For example, in the last few months, we have seen reports — open-source reports; I don’t have details — of Iranians helping Russians to evade their new sanctions because the Iranians are pros. I have read multiple reports of Iran and North Korea — which, on missile proliferation, for example, have very close relations — working together to share lessons learned on how to evade sanctions. This is something that is poorly understood, but it is very important.
Senator Richards: This has just been kind of answered by our guest. I was very interested in your five points. I thought they were spot-on, so thanks for them.
You mentioned that there is a definite and sometimes terrible moral component in all of this. If the population suffers and the leadership remains, what happens to the sanctions in the end? What can we look forward to?
Mr. Juneau: You’ve just framed the whole dilemma of sanctions, especially of the more sweeping kind. When the declared objective is to change the behaviour of the regime in terms of democratization, human rights and so on, and to change their foreign policy, it doesn’t happen — think about Cuba, the DPRK and Iran. In practice, de facto, the objective is to strangulate the regime economically and to sandbox it politically and militarily.
In those cases, it actually works reasonably well, as I said, for example, in the case of Iran and, as my colleague mentioned, in the case of DPRK.
What happens is the status quo, and that can last for a long time. A point that we have barely touched on today is: Who suffers because of that? It’s the populations of these states, which, as was mentioned in the case of Iraq or other cases, are not responsible for that.
I have one point I would like to add that I didn’t have time to mention earlier. One solution that comes up a lot to avoid exactly the dilemma you mentioned is exemptions. This is another case of good ideas in theory that don’t always work in practice.
Let me give you the example of Yemen, another country that I look at a lot. At the end of its term, the Trump administration listed the Houthis, the rebels who now control a good chunk of Yemen, including the capital, as a terrorist entity. Again, that is appealing because we are talking about an extremely brutal, repressive and obscurantist group. The problem was that the listing made it very difficult to deliver humanitarian assistance to Yemen, one of the worst humanitarian tragedies in the world as we speak.
The Trump administration talked about exemptions. In practice, these did not work because NGOs and international organizations simply did not want to risk the exposure to the sweeping net of U.S. terrorist designations.
The consequence here was, yes, the intent of listing the Houthis as a terrorist entity is appropriate from a moral and strategic perspective. But the humanitarian consequences on the ground, despite attempted exemptions, were devastating.
Ms. Portela: I can only confirm what has been mentioned by Professor Juneau. Humanitarian delivery is a major issue.
Now that Canada is part of the set of actors who are increasingly imposing unilateral sanctions, there is an increased need to take a good look at humanitarian exemptions and make sure that sanctions do not impede humanitarian action.
The last word I would like to leave with you, which I was planning to say earlier, is that Canada is now imposing more sanctions than in the past.
We can foresee that since the UN Security Council is not terribly active anymore, this trend will continue, and if this trend of unilateral sanctions coordinated with the U.S. and the EU. If this is going to go on, you probably need more flexibility than what you currently enjoy under SEMA and under the Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act.
Perhaps enlarging the number of scenarios under which you may impose sanctions will give you the flexibility that you need. Thank you.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you, Professor Portela and Professor Juneau. You have given us a lot to think about in this study.
Professor Portela, earlier you talked about an elephant in the room. I think what we have discovered in the testimony is that there is a herd of elephants that we have to identify in the course of our study.
With that, I would like to bring this session to a close, with thanks, and we will reconvene next week.
(The committee adjourned.)