A New Approach to Export Controls—No Fun Stuff for Bad Guys

As a result of North Korea’s recent nuclear test, the UN passed a resolution imposing multilateral sanctions on that country (U. N. Resolution 1718).  In early November, 2006, the U. N. distributed a list to its member countries of equipment, technology and industrial products that will be prohibited from being exported to North Korea.  All of these items have direct applications in missile and nuclear related activities.

In addition, members agreed to prohibit exports of luxury goods, because those will vary from nation to nation, each country will be responsible for formulating its own list of such luxury goods.  As an example, Switzerland ’s list includes watches, caviar, wine, tobacco, luxury clothes, carpets, fur overcoats, electronic appliances and cars.  The United States plans to stem the flow of iPods, among other things, to North Korea .

The ban on luxury goods will impact only the elite in North Korea because most North Koreans are not rich enough to buy iPods and caviar.  No doubt, without more iPods and fancy wrist watches, the North Korean leadership will cancel its aggressive pursuit of nuclear weapons capability and dump its stockpile of missile into the sea because there is no way anybody would smuggle such difficult to conceal items into the country.