WHEREAS during the decade of the 1990s economic sanctions increasingly have been used by governments, intergovernmental bodies, and non-governmental organizations to compel governments and other entities to change policies or behavior;

WHEREAS recent examples of the imposition of comprehensive economic sanctions, such as trade embargoes, have shown them frequently to be of limited effectiveness in achieving their political goals while resulting in severe hardship for the general population, especially the most vulnerable;

WHEREAS CWSW and its partners have experienced directly the adverse impact of sanctions on their humanitarian work in countries such as Cuba,* Iraq, and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea)*;

WHEREAS CWSW's partners have called for the lifting of economic sanctions against those countries;

WHEREAS the CWSW Unit Committee in 1997 created a study group to review the issue of economic sanctions and report back; and

WHEREAS the study group has completed its review based on various analyses of the impact and effectiveness of economic sanctions, a workshop including staff and representatives of member churches and colleague agencies, and a review of guidelines for judging the appropriateness of sanctions in specific cases, in particular those adopted by the World Council of Churches;

THEREFORE be it resolved that the CWSW Unit Committee:

RECEIVES the report of the study group;

AFFIRMS the conclusions and recommendations contained in the report of the study group;

CALLS UPON CWSW staff and those associated with CWSW to:

commend the World Council of Churches guidelines to public officials and to the churches as criteria for evaluation of the ethical use of economic sanctions;

promote with the UN and the US government use of indicators for assessing the humanitarian impact of sanctions before they are put in place;

insist that any and all sanctions regimes include humanitarian exemptions - food, medicine, medical supplies and equipment, basic school supplies, agricultural inputs and equipment;

call for systematic monitoring of sanctions regimes to assess and redress adverse humanitarian impact and for regular review to determine when conditions for removal of sanctions are met or whether they could be continued; and

work to increase CWSW capacity to assist the efforts of partner churches to address historic conflicts in their countries; and

COMMENDS this resolution and the study group's report and recommendations to the attention of the Executive Board and General Assembly of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.

*In these instances, sanctions have been imposed unilaterally by the United States.