North Korean Sanctions: Unintended Consequences

For the past month, an international consensus has taken shape on dealing with wayward North Korea: Hit it in the wallet. One after the other, the United States, the UN Security Council, and South Korea have slapped the country with punishing sanctions designed to rein in its nuclear and missile programs, which have move forward in spite of years of censure and dialogue.

But almost as soon it was administered, the prescribed punishment faced the charge of hurting ordinary North Koreans more than it does the regime’s elite.

The Eugene Bell Foundation, an American-run charity, told the media last week that South Korea’s latest unilateral restrictions on imports and exports had delayed a vital shipment to the country of multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis medication.

The charity, which operates out of South Korea, said Seoul’s decision to approve aid on a case-by-case basis was endangering the lives of some 1,500 North Koreans. Its 12 treatment centers in North Korea only had enough medication to last until the end of April, the foundation told media. 

Explaining that it was reviewing the foundation’s application, South Korea’s Ministry of Unification told Reuters that it remained its policy to allow aid directed at the needy.

“Recent media reports have suggested that our problem will be resolved soon,” an unnamed charity spokesperson told The Diplomat, declining to comment further. 

Despite this hopeful note, critics believe the fallout from the sanctions – introduced after a nuclear test and rocket launch in January and February, respectively – can’t be measured by one case of delayed aid. Instead, there are concerns that the impact of the measures on the overall North Korean economy is likely to hurt the general population.

And each set of sanctions has distinct functions. Unlike the South Korean measures, Washington’s sanctions specifically exempt all humanitarian aid, while the UN has insisted its response was tailored to avoid “adverse humanitarian consequences.”

Where all the sanctions align is in trying to restrict the regime’s access to hard currency, whether by blacklisting certain organizations and individuals or banning the trade of minerals deemed to be funding the regime’s weapons programs.   

“Sanctions against the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the official name of North Korea] are designed in large part to cut North Korean access to hard currency,” said Joseph DeThomas, a professor at Pennsylvania State University who previously worked on North Korean denuclearization at the State Department. 

“What do you suppose a regime like the DPRK will do, divert the remaining scarce hard currency to vulnerable segments of the general population? I think not. Thus the regime will shift the pain from its protected cadres to the people. It is sanctions 101 when dealing with totalitarian regimes.”

Beijing’s foreign ministry expressed similar concerns ahead of the Security Council vote, arguing that sanctions should not affect the “normal lives” of North Koreans. Days after those remarks, China nevertheless joined the unanimous vote in favor of sanctions. Yet, considerable doubt remains over whether Beijing, which provides more than 70 percent of Pyongyang’s trade, intends to enforce the measures. Early media reports from the China–North Korea border have suggested that business is carrying on largely as normal, although Beijing has reportedly denied some North Korean vessels entry to its ports. Among other provisions, the UN sanctions mandate member states to inspect all cargo going in and out of North Korea that enters its territory. 

Joshua Stanton, a commentator on North Korea who helped draft the U.S. sanctions, rejected the suggestion that the international response was responsible for hardship in the country. 

“When we were designing the sanctions in Congress, we were careful to incorporate humanitarian exceptions, because no matter how overwhelmingly responsible the North Korean government is for the suffering of the North Korean people, there are always certain NGO workers and reporters who are just waiting to blame sanctions instead,” he said.

Stanton said that South Korea should immediately approve the held-up medication, but added that charities should be directing blame at the regime for conditions inside North Korea. He said the country was capable of treating and feeding its own people – almost 3 million of whom require regular food assistance, according to the UN – but chose to expend its limited resources on arms. 

“NGOs that consistently give the North Korean government a pass on this gross misallocation of resources are not helping to address the greater humanitarian problem; they’re helping to prolong it,” Stanton said. 

“We are never going to solve the larger humanitarian crisis in North Korea until we call this government out for the deliberate policy decisions that keep the North Korean people sick, hungry, and isolated.”