Sanctions in Regional Settings

Abstract

Chapters 3 and 4 gave a brief account of the sanctions record of the League and the United Nations; this chapter reviews the major cases of sanctions which have been applied in regional settings. These include the organisationally-sponsored sanctions imposed in the Western hemisphere by the Organisation of American States (OAS) against the Dominican Republic and Cuba and in the Middle East by the Arab League against Egypt. Soviet bloc action against East European governments who have failed to toe the Kremlin line is also discussed in this chapter. Although there is no exact Eastern European counterpart to the OAS — the Warsaw Pact, like NATO, is a security treaty under Article 51 of the UN Charter and not a regional body under Chapter VIII — it provides a framework for collective action. And the cohesion of the Soviet bloc has also been reinforced by the Cominform (dissolved in 1949), the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA or COMECON)¹ and regular congresses of communist parties.