Title

Explaining the Imposition of the UN Arms Embargoes

Abstract

When do countries face United Nations arms embargoes? Although the UN Security Council chooses to impose arms embargoes to maintain international peace and security according to Chapter VII and Article 41 of the UN charter, consensus among the Security Council members should not be neglected when considering the required collective decision to impose arms embargoes. Using newly collected data on mandatory UN arms embargoes, this paper analyzes factors that affect the imposition of UN arms embargoes on countries experiencing civil conflicts. The empirical results show that the imposition of UN arms embargoes is decided not only based on humanitarian considerations but also on the target country’s relationship with UN Security Council members. When a target country’s government has violated human rights, particularly in the case of genocides or politicides, the Security Council is more likely to impose an arms embargo on that country. However, the effect of the target countries’ humanitarian crises on an arms embargo imposition is conditioned by the arms trade relationship between those countries and some permanent Security Council members. The results demonstrate that in addition to humanitarian issues, the interests of the Security Council members in relation to target countries can significantly affect the likelihood of a consensus about the imposition of UN arms embargoes.

Keywords

UN Arms Embargo, UN Security Council, Genocides, Trade, Arms Transfers