Foreign Affairs Committee on Oct. 31st, 2016

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to both of you for your testimony.

My first question is for you, Professor Lopez. What I took from your evidence is that sanctions rarely work on their own against human rights abusers. Is that a fair summary of your bottom line?

[Prof. George Lopez]

You're absolutely correct. Thank you.

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Indeed, if they did, we probably wouldn't see as much conflict in the world and as many wars. Is that a fair statement?

[Prof. George Lopez]

Well, I think one of the interesting things about the legislation and the whole dialogue we've had this afternoon is that there are many more financial dimensions that drive wars, including crime and corruption, than there have ever been. While we could say that we have 25 years of history of UN and EU and other sanctions, and boy, the evidence is really good, I would urge you on this, and I would say that this is the last time—or the worst time—that you would want to say “let's scrap these tactics because they're ineffective”.

Now, in fact, on crime and corruption, the global system has caught up with the ability to use these techniques in much more targeted and effective ways and to actually tailor legislative programs to be more effective in stripping perpetrators of the kinds of things they have available to them to enable and perpetrate atrocities.

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

I'm glad to hear you say that, because we did hear some evidence earlier today in the first round that suggested that sanctions at their worst can be ineffective and even counterproductive, but I think that at least some of us here are trying to be a little more optimistic and even practical, in that, when used properly amongst the multilateral tools that are available to Canada, sanctions can often effect desired outcomes.

I wanted to pick up, though, on your evidence about enablers. You said that if sanctions are used properly and specifically, in a targeted way, we can get at the money, the resources, and the communications networks that are used by human rights abusers. How can Canada work with other like-minded state actors in a more effective way to coordinate the approach to using sanctions targeted at enablers?

[Prof. George Lopez]

One way, for example, is to think about your participation in the Financial Action Task Force, which has given us very good and effective ways of following the money in the nuclear non-proliferation area or in the counterterrorism area. We now need to have powerful democratic states like Canada say to FATF that we now need the same kind of approach that has been effective multilaterally to look at mass atrocities.

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

It is through things like the Financial Action Task Force that Canada can coordinate and strengthen its resolve when it comes to coordinating sanctions?

[Prof. George Lopez]

Yes, particularly if we find ways to enlighten FATF that the kind of success they've had in these other areas has to be transferred to the human rights area—absolutely.

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

What are the risks that Canada becomes unaligned with other like-minded states when it comes to coordination? I realize that sometimes states do engage in negotiations with countries that are abusing human rights, for the purposes of advancing certain causes that are to the benefit of Canada, so how do we ensure that we stay on the same page, if I could put it in those general terms?

[Prof. George Lopez]

Well, I think you rely heavily on the NGO and the international community that talks about the level of abuse and the level of corruption connected with the abuse. It's terrible to say that there's a difference between dealing at a foreign policy level with a government whose ideology or current practice with a strong-arm ruler has gone awry in our democratic principles, versus dealing with a kleptocracy. I think—

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

I'm sorry to interrupt you, Professor Lopez, but my time is short.

My last question is this: how do we measure the success of sanctions? We have heard evidence that sometimes we can confuse causation with correlation? What is your concise answer as to how best not to confuse those two concepts?

[Prof. George Lopez]

You follow closely the panel of experts reports from the UN. You follow closely the NGO and research community that's on the ground monitoring what's happening everywhere from South Sudan to other countries where these are playing out on the ground.

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

What are the things in the report that we should be looking for?

[Prof. George Lopez]

You should be looking for the naming and shaming of the violators, and the extent to which other countries, in their foreign policy, are unwilling to condemn actors in their own political domestic environment who have been enablers.

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

That's my time. Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Thank you, Mr. Mendicino.

Mr. Aubin, go ahead.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My first question is for Mr. Lopez, although Ms. Portela should feel free to chime in.

I was a bit disappointed with the start of your presentation when you said that economic sanctions seemed to be ineffective or only somewhat effective. However, during your presentation, you seemed to say that the economic sanctions procedure had undergone a certain number of changes over the years. As a result, the economic sanctions may be a bit more effective now.

What should be done next to make the sanctions more effective and to possibly bring together the European Union's method and the North American bloc's method, which seem quite different?

[Prof. George Lopez]

I think there are a couple of things. One is to further underscore what Dr. Portela said about the corruption mechanisms, etc. We continue to go after high-level foreign policy officials in trying to control their human rights behaviour and improve it. What we have to do is realize that the greatest perpetrators, both in conditions of war and of regular human rights abuses without war, tend to be kleptocracies and organized criminal networks that are benefiting substantially from the perpetration of these violent areas.

There is no greater case right now in the international community than South Sudan, where these two particular politicians, supposedly at political loggerheads or tribal differences, are actually amassing vast fortunes for themselves and their families by making the atrocities go on. I think it's a changed, focused lens or mindset in which you make.... You have to understand that the drivers for the violence tend to be corruption, criminal networks, and the illicit use of funds.

The second thing is that the ground ahead is to get regional organizations, particularly those like the African Union, to look at things like sustainable development goal 16, which talks about building effective, accountable, and inclusive institutions in which anti-corruption and protection of rights on the ground really matter.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Ms. Portela, do have anything to add?

[Prof. Clara Portela]

Thank you very much.

I totally agree with what Dr. Lopez just mentioned.

Perhaps what I would add is that it is difficult to foresee what the next state will be, because, interestingly, UN sanctions are becoming increasingly targeted. We have seen the UN Security Council basically being ready to blacklist spoilers to peace treaties, for example. The sanctions of the UN are becoming more personal, more targeted, and more individualized.

But if we look at the sanctions practice of the European Union, we see that it is actually becoming less targeted. There is increased readiness to impose measures that affect wider sectors of the economy or population groups that are not directly implied in the misbehaviour that the sanctions are trying to address.

Since we have a situation in which universal sanctions are becoming more targeted, but some unilateral sanctions are becoming less targeted, it is difficult to foresee what the next state will be. In any case, the interplay between these two levels might be quite interesting to observe over the coming years. We might witness a scenario in which the global and the regional levels follow different paths. They might even go in opposite directions, but they might still be complementary and actually quite effective.

Finally, I would underline again what Dr. Lopez has mentioned: what matters is that we improve our capacity to follow the money. The activities of the Financial Action Task Force have made it much easier to identify what financing networks are in place. This knowledge makes it much easier to target them specifically.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Thank you, Mr. Aubin.

Ms. Zahid, you have the floor.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thanks to Mr. Lopez and Ms. Portela for providing their testimony today.

My first question is to both of you in regard to the effectiveness of sanctions.

What measures are used to test the effectiveness of sanctions? For example, the intent of sanctions, at least in part, is to influence a change in behaviour on the part of the targeted state. If this change does indeed take place, how can we be sure that it was due to the sanctions and not other factors such as a leadership struggle, popular unrest, an empowered opposition, or capital flight in response to popular unrest?

Ms. Portela, you can start, and Mr. Lopez can also provide his input.

[Prof. Clara Portela]

It is not easy to establish a causality link, but in some cases this has been quite evident, because even the targeted leaders or the advisers, the circle around them, have confirmed that the impact of sanctions or the prospect of the continuation of sanctions has affected their calculations.

Sometimes it is possible to ascertain that there is a relationship of causality simply by taking a look at the chronology. In some cases, it is pretty evident, but in many cases, what you usually have is a combination of factors leading to these decisions.

Sanctions can be effective and not simply by having a direct impact on the calculations of the responsible leaders. Sometimes the sanctions can create conditions that foster a climate, or they bring about, for example, defections among the members of the inner circle of the leaders, which helps bring about this kind of behaviour.

As I mentioned in my presentation very briefly, sanctions are not only, or primarily, or exclusively about influence, but about changing the behaviour of the targeted leaders. They fulfill a number of functions in international relations, and sometimes the sanctions are actually designed to just create an incentive for the leaders to negotiate, to participate in a process of negotiation that is influenced by many other factors.

In many cases, as long as the sanctions have actually provided an incentive for parties participating in a conflict to actually negotiate, then we can consider the sanctions to have been successful, even if they have not brought about a complete change in the behaviour of the leaders, or even if they have not managed to interrupt completely the prescribed behaviour.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Can we also hear from Mr. Lopez?

[Prof. George Lopez]

Yes, let me pick up exactly where Clara left off. In the first 14 cases of UN sanctions of position from the nineties to the mid-2000s, we found that 11 of those cases resulted in some kind of negotiation between the UN or various actors and the targets. This notion of sanctions that punish exclusively or so arm-twist and inflict pain as to make a target capitulate are all a myth. They're not borne out by the history.

What you want to do is not only enrage the target that you've sanctioned them, but you want to leave that path, that incentive, that Dr. Portela talked about, for there being an engagement between the international community or the imposers of sanctions and the target so you can persuade them to change the behaviour and show them the rewards that may be associated with that. When that can't happen, the utility of sanctions, to be effective, is that they should deny unlimited access to easy resources of a financial type, or arms or other types, which leave the perpetrators of violence unaffected by what you're doing. It's very important to have a mechanism whereby you can measure the ability to constrain those resources and limit the ways in which they can find substitutes for their arms, for their technologies, and for greater followers.

Finally, I think I'd say that sanctions fail when they're seen as the major instrument or the pulse. Sanctions work when they're part of the tools in a larger set of policies. If I want to improve the human rights behaviour of a target, I will use sanctions to deny its resources and try to create a bargaining situation, but I'm going to use the other available tools to our country or to our international organization to find ways to strengthen and protect the people who were targets or victims of the atrocities and to find ways to change the international dealings with commercial actors within that country that are ambivalent or a little embarrassed by the actions of the regime.

I think that brings us back to where Dr. Portela began. Can you get to the elites who support the policy but haven't actually designed it or implemented it and want a better business and political climate than they currently have?