The UN, Regional Sanctions and Africa

• Main Authors: CHARRON, Andrea, PORTELA, Clara
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2015
• Subjects: United Nations; sanctions; foreign relations; Africa; African Studies; International Relations; Political Science
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/1869; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soss_research/article/3126/viewcontent/UNRegionalSanctionsAfrica_2015.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

Africa is the continent most targeted by sanctions. During the Cold War, when the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) was all but paralysed, the only sanctions regimes that the UN imposed were directed at countries located on the African continent: Southern Rhodesia and South Africa, penalized for their apartheid regimes. In the post-Cold War era, Africa has continued to register the highest frequency of sanctions, applied not only by the UN but by other organizations as well. Africa’s own regional bodies, such as the African Union (AU) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), are active in wielding sanctions against their members; and about half of the sanctions imposed by the EU are levied against African targets. Africa, then, represents the point of confluence of the sanctions practice not only of the UN, but of at least three diverse regional organizations, and consequently registers the highest frequency of sanctions worldwide.