Publication: Penalties and Sanctions in International Politics

The Function of Punishment in International Politics

The contributions to this volume show how the norms and underlying power structures of international politics develop when states punish each other. Depending on the time and place, diverse punitive measures have also been distributed, with different intentions and outcomes. In the era of colonialism, punitive expeditions were used to maintain the unequal power structure between parts of a colonial empire. After World War II, many former colonies became independent states that formally came to be on an equal footing with other states. At the same time, differences remained, for example, between the norms of the Global North with an emphasis on individualised, retributive punishment for atrocities and a Global South that criticised neocolonialism and put reparations for past colonial wrongs on the agenda.

Among the other conclusions of the editors - besides Ronald Kroeze, Wolfgang Wagner, Linet R. Durmusoglu, Barbora Holá, Jan-Willem van Prooijen, and Wouter G. Werner - is that in recent international politics, the legitimacy of sanctions is often challenged. Unlike in a nation-state where the government monopolises violence, the power to punish in defence of the international order is more contested. Although procedures and institutions are in place, the legitimacy of such authority remains contested, as within the United Nations, member states have conflicts over terminology, and regional organisations compete with the UN to determine the normative order.

Netherlands Sanctioned by President Suharto in 1992

In one contribution, Farabi Fakih and Ronald Kroeze discuss the role of punishment in the history of colonial and postcolonial relations, with a particular focus on the end of the Inter-Governmental Group on Indonesia (IGGI), an organisation under Dutch chairmanship that coordinated Indonesia's Western donor funds. That end resulted from a series of punitive measures back and forth between the Netherlands and Indonesia. The immediate cause was the bloody crackdown by Indonesian security forces on an independence demonstration in East Timor in November 1991 - a flagrant human rights violation. In response, Development Cooperation Minister Jan Pronk (PvdA) announced that aid funds to Indonesia would be put on hold. Indonesian President Suharto was furious and accused the Netherlands of neo-colonialism. Dutch businesses feared the economic consequences; in parliament, the PvdA-CDA coalition partners came to oppose each other. Behind the scenes, Indonesia organised backing from major donors such as Japan and the United States. Once this was guaranteed, the Netherlands had to back down. Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers (CDA) and Foreign Minister Hans van den Broek (CDA) tried to restore relations, which succeeded, but the Netherlands lost its particular position as chair of IGGI as this donor organisation was disbanded in 1992. From a longer historical perspective, this case shows the diminished power of the Netherlands to set international standards.