ABSTRACT
What are the lessons that can be drawn from cases of sanctions dealing with the end of wars and pertaining to supporting peacebuilding efforts after war? This chapter reports on two such situations, which can help generate lessons of value for the use of sanctions with such ambitions. In all, eight countries in sub-Saharan Africa have been exposed to United Nations (UN) sanctions since the end of the Cold War (Wallensteen 2011). All but one has dealt with civil war situations, the eighth case being South Africa, where the sanctions were targeted on ending the apartheid regime in the country. This field study was carried out in 2006 in two cases in Western Africa. They were selected as both found themselves in fragile, ongoing post-conflict experiences. They are neighbors and the events in one country affect those in the other. Both had been prosperous, building on mineral exports in one case and on cocoa in the other. Sanctions were used to influence the development. In one of the cases, Liberia, a peace agreement in 2003 aimed at ending fourteen years of war. A successful election in 2005 helped to stabilize the situation and the elected candidate, Mrs. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, was installed as president. A UN operation, UNMIL, was in place. In the other case, Côte d’Ivoire, the country was in an uneasy post-conflict situation without a comprehensive agreement having been implemented and the country was territorially divided between North and South, each with its army, in a cease-fire supervised by a UN peacekeeping operation (UNOCI) which incorporated forces from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the West African regional organization. France also had forces in the country. Thus, sanctions had different ambitions: peacebuilding in the case of Liberia, preventing a return to war in Côte d’Ivoire.
