Columbia International Affairs Online: Policy Briefs

CIAO DATE: 06/2009

Save the Arms Embargo

Peter Wallensteen

January 2008

The Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame

Abstract

One of the first measures contemplated by the United Nations when confronting a new security crisis is to institute an arms embargo. Since the end of the Cold War - which liberated international action from the constraints of major power confrontation - there have been 27 such embargoes.