Must read: Andrea Berger calls for U.N. to sanction N. Korea’s 3d-country enablers

When I was a single man, there was a certain magazine that I only read for the interviews (I swear). Now that I’m an older, married man, I console myself with a certain website I mostly just read for the (satellite) pictures. Much of its commentary consists of echoes in the corridor of a hospice of ideas, of things Selig Harrison might have said in 1993, but here and there one finds something fresh, substantial, and useful, including sanctions expert Andrea Berger’s excellent posts.

Just as I’ve argued that there is much more that the U.S. Treasury Department could do to strengthen U.S. national sanctions, Berger writes that there is much more the U.N. Security Council could do to strengthen international sanctions on North Korea:

Numerous options for strengthening the sanctions regime still exist. As a first order of business, the Security Council could offer clarification regarding some of the grey areas which persist in the sanctions regime, as previously discussed on 38 North.

Yet clarifications alone will not alleviate the pressures mentioned above. As a more concrete step, the Security Council should take action against those non-North Korean entities and individuals who consciously facilitate North Korean proliferation by introducing targeted sanctions against some of them. Doing so would remind countries along North Korea’s proliferation pathways—those that are not the source or destination countries for illicit goods, but rather host “middlemen”—that they must ensure that their citizens and residents comply with UN resolutions when they do business with Pyongyang. [Andrea Berger, 38 North]

As I pointed out recently, one reason U.N. sanctions aren’t working very well is that the 1718 Committee isn’t acting promptly on the recommendations of the Panel of Experts, either because of Chinese obstructionism or simple incompetence. The Security Council must take Pyongyang’s next provocation as an opportunity to fix the 1718 Committee (or better yet, its last provocation). Failing this, an alliance of like-minded member states should cooperate to impose national sanctions on violators, in accordance with their respective laws, as soon as the Panel of Experts produces credible evidence of a violation.

The list that the Security Council has agreed to target is remarkably short, considering the extent of the activities prohibited: 12 individuals and 20 entities. The UN’s own Panel of Experts on North Korea has already shown that many more are known to have materially assisted either WMD or missile programs, or arms sales overseas. By contrast, the soon-to-be-disbanded sanctions list for Iran contains 43 individuals and 78 entities.

Though designations fall out of date because the sanctioned parties change or create new aliases, formally designating North Korean individuals and entities is an important step. Resolutions concerning North Korea require UN Member States to take action against the affiliates of sanctioned parties. The 2014 designation of the North Korean shipping firm Ocean Maritime Management (OMM) has already provided grounds for Singapore to charge and try Chinpo Shipping, and its owner Tan Cheng Hoe, who assisted with OMM’s shipment of arms and related material from Cuba to North Korea in July 2013. Yet these cases are rare. Many governments only act if the UN requires them to, namely by designating a new entity or individual and providing an accompanying explanation. Countries that choose to take independent action against unnamed affiliates of sanctioned parties must rely on their own information gathering, demonstrating a legally convincing link with a UN-sanctioned party. Few appear willing to do so.

Specifically, Berger calls for the U.N. to designate such enablers as Singapore-based Senat Shipping. She notes that the Panel of Experts has identified third-country enablers as “an indispensable part of the North Korean network.”

Without them, Pyongyang would find it increasingly difficult to move goods or process payments. For decades, “trusted” partners like Chinpo Shipping have regularly facilitated North Korean transactions—both legitimate and illegitimate—as part of their broader business. An earlier investigation for 38 North showed that OMM’s other Singapore-based affiliates have similarly deep-seated business relationships with the reclusive state.

More on Senat and Chinpo Shipping here. Berger also links to a news report about British arms dealer Michael Ranger. Read the rest on your own.

At (ironically enough) Johns Hopkins yesterday, I made the point that one does not ask whether a symphony should be played with a tuba or a xylophone alone. In the same way that an orchestra is made of many instruments, effective sanctions are one important element of a credible foreign policy. One can extend this analogy to say that U.S. and U.N. sanctions, like trumpets and trombones, work best in concert. Cuba is an example of how U.S. sanctions aren’t as effective without strong international support. Cuba could (barely) scrape by on euros, Swiss francs, Canadian dollars, and with help from banks that were willing to look the other way and help it move money through the dollar system illegally.

North Korea sanctions present the opposite problem. Nominally, North Korea sanctions are backed by reasonably strong Chapter VII U.N. resolutions, but lack aggressive enforcement by the main stewards of the financial system: the U.S., Europe, and other issuers of convertible currencies. An ad hoc alliance between these states, South Korea, and Japan, could join forces to squeeze a target’s finances.

They would also be able to squelch Russia’s transparent attempt to dodge sanctions with a bilateral trading house. After all, it’s difficult to imagine that the two countries could carry on much trade using the (worthless, non-convertible) North Korean won, or the plummeting ruble.