6 Items

A man is reflected in a glass as an electronic stock board shows the Hang Seng Index at a bank in Hong Kong, Friday, Sept. 22, 2017. Most Asian stock markets fell Friday as investors turned cautious following new U.S. sanctions targeting North Korea and a China credit rating downgrade.

(AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

Analysis & Opinions - Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Can Chinese banks identify North Korean sanctions evaders?

| Oct. 04, 2017

Last week, President Trump signed a new executive order that paves the way to impose sanctions against any foreign bank that conducts business with North Korea, going well beyond current UN financial sanctions. These so-called secondary sanctions, which are penalties applied to third-party foreign banks (i.e., not directly against North Korean entities), are particularly focused on Chinese banks.

Analysis & Opinions - The National Interest

Just How Vulnerable Is Iran to Sanctions?

| August 3, 2015

"Although this phased-approach to sanctions relief under the JCPOA ensures that Iran does not receive benefits without first implementing its nuclear commitments, uncertainties remain. The agreement does not affect U.S. and EU non-nuclear sanctions, such as those that target human rights abuses, support for terrorism, and money laundering. One question is whether or not relief from nuclear-related sanctions will affect the usefulness of non-nuclear sanctions."

Analysis & Opinions - Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Big Banks and Their Game of Risk

| January 21, 2015

"For US regulators, 2014 was a banner year for collecting fines against sanctions violators, according to The Economist. In June, BNP Paribas—France’s largest bank, and one of the largest in the world—agreed to shell out $9 billion to the US Department of Justice for violating sanctions against Cuba, Iran, and Sudan. This past month, US regulators slapped Germany’s Commerzbank—the country’s second-largest bank, with a similar global presence—with a $1 billion fine, after launching an investigation into its dealings with sanctioned countries. The increases in fines have signaled an aggressive, zero-tolerance policy toward violators, as well as a willingness to use the extraterritorial provisions of sanctions, which allow regulators to punish foreign-based banks..."

Radical Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, center, speaks to the media from behind bars of a holding cell before the start of his trial in Jakarta, Indonesia, Feb. 24, 2011. Bashir denied that he helped set up a new terrorist cell & training camp.

AP Photo

Analysis & Opinions - Public Discourse

God and Terror

    Authors:
  • Timothy Samuel Shah
  • Daniel Philpott
| May 20, 2011

"...[R]eligion has made a political comeback, abetted by globalization, democratization, and technological development. Those religious actors who are most closely integrated with state authority and who hold a political theology that calls for state sponsorship, the subordination of minorities, and the use of violence are most likely to be violent. Those who have remained independent of state authority and carry a political theology that prescribes democracy, peace, and reconciliation are most likely to be peaceful and democratic."

Magazine Article - The American Interest

Size Matters

| July-August 2008

"As the American political system hurtles toward its quadrennial encounter with the oracle of democracy, it is worth our while to take stock of the country's place in a world beset by bewilderingly rapid change. (Heaven knows none of the candidates will bother to do this.) I want to suggest that an old yet generally neglected subject remains particularly relevant: the relationship between the size of political units and the effective scale of systems of economic production and exchange. Another way to describe this relationship is by recourse to the hoary scholarly phrase "political economy", a term of art that has unfortunately gone out of style...."