From Britain’s Daily Telegraph (reprinted in Canada’s National Post, Thursday, July 25, 2019:
Hassan Rouhini, Iran’s president, said Wednesday that if Britain reversed its “wrong actions, including what they did in Gibraltar” then “they will receive a proper response from Iran.”
There was no immediate British reaction to the offer. The U.K. has insisted it seized the Iranian tanker because it was taking oil to Syria in violation of EU sanctions.
The article explained that Rouhani suggested that he would release the British tanker his government seized recently if the U.K. government would release an Iranian that it seized near Gibraltar.
That sounds reasonable to me.
But check the last sentence of the quoted news piece. The British government says, apparently with a straight face, that it seized an Iranian tanker because it violated the EU sanctions. But, assuming that the tanker really was headed to Syria (and there is some reasonable doubt about this), so the hell what? Unless something has changed in the last day, neither Syria nor Iran is in the EU. So how could a trade between the two be subject to EU sanctions?
I’ve written a number of articles (and here) laying out why sanctions are generally not a good idea and hurt mainly innocent people. It’s a whole other step for government A to insist that government B comply with sanctions imposed by an organization that government A, but not government B (nor the government of the people in country C who are on the other end of the exchange) belongs to.
READER COMMENTS
Mark Brady
Jul 26 2019 at 7:02pm
May we expect a vigorous condemnation of U.S., E.U., and other nation-states’ sanctions against Venezuela any time soon?
David Henderson
Jul 26 2019 at 9:40pm
As I said, I’ve denounced sanctions for quite some time. I’m certainly vigorously against the sanctions against Venezuela also. Did you have any doubt about that? If so, I’m not sure why.
Mark Brady
Jul 26 2019 at 9:50pm
I figured you were against those sanctions, but I wasn’t sure.
I’m glad to hear that you take a principled stand. We should expect nothing less from Professor Henderson.
Mark Z
Jul 27 2019 at 12:22am
US sanctions against Venezuela are economically negligible, and a red herring in terms of explaining the current misery of the Venezuelan people. To my knowledge they basically consist of 1) travel and economic sanctions against select individuals who are part of the Venezuelan state and have participated in some of its questionable practices, and 2) restrictions on the purchase of Venezuelan state bonds (or state oil company bonds). Now, I certainly think the US should let people buy Venezuelan bonds without harassment (of course it wouldn’t make much difference; Venezuelan bond markets aren’t exactly flourishing in the Europeans countries that don’t have these sanctions). But I’m not so sure I’d object to, say, the freezing of accounts or barring of travel to the US for the most egregious kleptocrats (and worse) of the Venezuelan government. Impeding an extortionist from getting away with his extortion doesn’t seem like an atrocity to me; and I suspect many of the people on the list of sanctioned individuals deserve (from a natural rights standpoint at least) to be arrested and charged with many serious violent and property crimes; I have a hard time seeing them as victims therefore for being told they’ll be sent back if they try to fly to Miami.
Ben
Jul 26 2019 at 7:22pm
You fail to note that the tanker was detained in Gibraltar’s territorial waters.
Isn’t it reasonable in that case?
Mark Z
Jul 27 2019 at 12:27am
At risk of displaying my ignorance of the matter, why was an Iranian tanker taking oil to Syria near Gibraltar? There seems to be faster ways to get there. Or is this part of why the destination of the tanker is in doubt?
Jon Murphy
Jul 27 2019 at 8:57am
I’m not an expert on the matter, but it seems to me that the answer to your question is likely Iran cannot use the Suez Canal for some reason.
Andrew Nichols
Jul 30 2019 at 10:56pm
The Iranian supertanker was too big for the canal.
Benjamin Cole
Jul 26 2019 at 7:36pm
So what is the purpose of having a global naval fleet?
The people who have a stake in shipping, should not they hire private gunboats to protect their fleets?
Thaomas
Jul 27 2019 at 6:45am
Thanks for the clarification that it involves an Iranian in Gibraltar. I was afraid it was a demand to return the rock to the Cordoba caliphate. 🙂
Scott Sumner
Jul 27 2019 at 7:44pm
I agree that the UK action was unjustified. In my view, sanctions should be applied to cases where a country invades and tries to annex another country. These cases are very rare in the modern world.
Roger D McKinney
Jul 28 2019 at 9:30pm
Good points! Along the same line, it’s odd to me that the US wants China to enforce US law on copyrights. I’ve never agreed with US copyright laws. Why should China?
The answer seems to be that the US and EU push other nations around because they can.
MadJon
Jul 31 2019 at 7:40am
Surely, the headline here should be ‘The USA is an outlaw nation – Britain pays the price’. After all, it is the Trump administration that has broken the Iran nuclear deal, and reimposed stringent sanctions against Iran. This has hurt and angered Iran far more than the seizure of a single tanker – they want revenge.
Britain is both one of the USA’s closest allies in foreign policy terms and is simultaneously vulnerable due to the political ructions with our (currently) fellow EU members. It is obviously the perfect target for this Iranian fury. They calculated very well. Despite the fact that Gibraltar (or Britain if you prefer) was carrying out the EU sanctions against the export of crude oil to the Baniyas refinery in Syria. What support does the EU give? Nothing. Some see this as a sign of the future. Maybe.
Generally I’d agree that sanctions are probably not a great idea, but the EU does still impose them and this includes crude oil, so this sanction is not a perfidious British invention.
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