Thank you very much for that important question.
Let me preface my answer by saying that I am primarily a security studies person who focuses on nuclear non-proliferation. But, being in security studies, I have had occasion to speak with colleagues about this issue. I'm working on Iran and North Korea, and North Korea has a horrendous human rights record.
Let me also make clear my full personal and professional commitment to the concept of human rights. I think it's fundamental and basic—more basic than other things that we emphasize every day. I think human rights may be more important than democratic practice, for example, but there's a big argument there.
Let me jump to the last question, and then move up.
With regard to outcomes, I would really encourage people to look at the research on the relationship between sanctions and human rights outcomes. Abuses of human rights are bad. Sanctions are punishment. But, fundamentally, you have to ask yourself, are you doing good? Are you advancing the goal in a practical manner, or are you making things worse, rather than better?
If sanctions have unintended negative consequences for the very communities you are trying to protect, then perhaps you should look at alternative policy tools and not sanctions. Again, this has not been the focus of my research, but the reason I say this is because I am certainly aware of research, some large and quantitative studies, that suggests that there's a very negative relationship between the imposition of sanctions and human rights outcomes. The arguments go something like this. Let's assume there's a dictator involved here. When you impose sanctions for human rights purposes, it makes the dictator become more nervous about his political situation. The dictator may feel a need to crack down on the domestic population, and it also gives an excuse for cracking down on the domestic population. Those are general propositions. They could be true in some particular cases and not in others. But I say, let evidence be our guide.
Remember what I said about North Korea or about non-proliferation sanctions, in general? This is something that is maddeningly a matter of “the devil is in the details”. For some countries, sanctions are going to work great. For some, they're going to be terrible—and by “terrible“, I mean not effective. In some cases, they might actually cause more harm than good. It really comes down to particular countries and then to particular situations.
But—