UN arms embargoes

The focus of research was the state and evolution of UN arms embargoes and their implementation including monitoring and enforcement. The objective was to build a comprehensive database on the topic that had received much less academic attention previously in order to identify obstacles and options for arms embargoes’ contribution to conflict resolution.
In doing so, the project builds in particular on the current state of research on UN sanctions and seeks to address their contribution and shortcomings under changing conditions in conflict areas as well as in the UN system, especially within the governance architecture for sanctions.
As a starting point, the research design built on the analysis of all ongoing UN arms embargoes addressing armed conflict as well as a basic overview of previous, terminated embargoes. The analysis of ongoing UN arms embargoes is not a structured comparison; rather the study traces their evolution along several categories in order to identify common and differing patterns that are relevant to answer the overall research question.