Secondary sanctions mechanism revisited: the case of US sanctions against North Korea

Abstract

This chapter explores the mechanism of secondary sanctions in light of US sanctions against North Korea during the period 2016 and 2017. I propose a game theoretic framework that captures the sanction dynamics among a leading sender, target and third party with the weapons technology advancing over time. I show that additional secondary sanctions in response to the maturing technology that could lead to target compliance depends on how much more costly it becomes for the target to give up the technology as well as the third party’s voluntary sanction level. I examine the ways in which US secondary sanctions together with the UNSC Resolutions coerced China to rachet up its sanction level against North Korea and ultimately contributed to get North Korea out to the negotiation table in 2019.