Abstract
While the spotlight has focused on multilateral economic sanctions in the post-Cold War era as a non- military means of exercising force by the United Nations, there has been a long history of unilateral economic sanctions by individual states exercising their powers on international politics in order to satisfy their national interests and security needs. Regarding the nuclear issues of North Korea and Iran, various discussions have been raised for many years over the roles and effects of international economic sanctions. Unilateral economic sanctions have been undertaken since the 1970s against concerns about the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Among them are cases in which economic sanctions succeeded, such as South Korea and Taiwan, and eventually nuclear nonproliferation as a foreign policy objective was realized. However, in many cases, there is a historical reality that nuclear nonproliferation cannot be achieved only by such economic sanctions. From the examples of sanctions against North Korea and Iran, there have emerged not only issues of political coordination among the countries concerned, but also a various political considerations. These include engagement by “gatekeepers,” who have influence on the targeted countries, the shifting “breakout” status of nuclear development of targeted country, the establishment of policy objectives to be achieved by economic sanctions, and the cost to be accepted for imposing sanctions, including a possible transition to military sanctions. Under these circumstances, the value and importance of the multilayered non- proliferation framework consisting of the historic nuclear non-proliferation regime and export control on weapons of mass destruction must be re-evaluated.
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