Strict Economic Sanctions On North Korea Essay

The biggest argument against placing strict economic sanctions on North Korea is that many consider it to harm the innocent North Korean citizens more than the insensitive government officials making the decisions.Experts argue that the results of the economic sanctions cause large scale disease and death in North Korea which force the citizens to take the chance of either starving to death in their countries or risk their lives in escaping to China. As shown in the book Escape from Camp 14 there are concentration camps containing thousands of North Koreans that have attempted to escape or have broken other North Korean rules. The fate of North Korean citizens at these camps is just as bad as death because the prisoners are forced to perform hazardous manual labor for years. There’s a pattern showing that as there are stricter economic sanctions placed on North Korea there is also an increase in North Korean

Although this is true, there is no other non-military action that can be done to convince North Korea to change their policies. The United Nations has exhausted almost all possibilities except for an invasion because that has a high chance of leading into nuclear war. Resorting to an invasion of North Korea will absolutely cause more death than the economic sanctions because North Korea will always have a little foreign aid from non profit organizations. Also, the times North Korea has been the most “cooperative” such as in 1991 with the signing of the South-North Joint Declaration on Denuclearization has been when they were desperate to solve their resources problem. Restricting their supplies as a strategy has shown to work in negotiating with North Korea. The goals behind these economic sanctions is that they are not meant to be permanent restrictions placed on North Korea so they can always be lifted once North Korea provides a compromise of some