Economic sanctions remain a useful and powerful diplomatic tool, a Kroc Institute sanctions expert told members of the U.S. Congress in May.

According to Senior Fellow George A. Lopez, the United Nations has sharpened that tool since the 1990s Oil-for-Food program that targeted Iraq gave sanctions a bad reputation. Sanctions reforms have been significant and are ongoing, he told members of the House Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats, and International Relations. Lopez based his comments on 15 years of scholarly research and consulting for the UN and its member countries.

He listed the circumstances under which sanctions are most effective, including:
   •  The UN Security Council details a clear and limited number of demands in the sanctions resolution;
   •  The sanctions adopted by the council and its members are one component of a more multifaceted means of persuasion and/or coercion;
   •  The council has made provisions for humanitarian exceptions, as needed.
   UN sanctions fail, Lopez said, when:
   •  They are excessively punitive and isolate a target from continued bargaining with the Security Council or member states;
   •  Leaders of the targeted country or party portray the UN as the offending party and deflect the focus from their own behavior;
   •  The Security Council or its members fail to recognize partial compliance:
   •  Successful application of economic coercion
produces no change in political behavior or compliance.