Sanctions

That sanctions are an obstacle for everybody including the sanctioning parties is obvious.  Nonetheless, we might briefly summarise the reasons as follows. 

Sanctions:

• are ineffective (observations of daily life in Pyongyang, as well as in the more remote areas, show that luxury goods - and not fakes, but the real thing - are widely available to everybody who can afford them, despite the imposition of ever-harsher sanctions).
• create hostility
• negatively impact those who are the poorest
• are an obstacle to productive dialogue between the parties with interests in the region
• hurt economically those companies and countries locked out of free trade with the sanctioned country
• create an environment which rewards criminals and sanctions busters
• hinder the development of the legitimate economy
• lock the sanctioned party into counterproductive behaviour - this includes forcing enterprises carrying out legitimate business to use channels that look suspicious even where there is nothing wrong with them.

Please read the article by Prof Ruediger Frank of the University of Vienna.

Nonetheless, regulations are regulations, and business people who trade legitimately without wishing to be in breach of sanctions need to know these.  Below, we have included:

1. An extract from Wikipedia with many useful links, mainly on UN sanctions

2. The US sanctions summary from Reuters

3. Federal Register of the United States Government     (March 2011)
4. The EU sanctions and regulations

5. A useful summary and comment from Austria (in German)