The Efficacy of North Korean Sanctions and Remediation Strategie

The United Nations and United States' economic sanctions on North Korea are significant because they have deep geopolitical implications. North Korea has grown its nuclear program and is perceived as a great threat to world security, and financial institutions are bound by law to exercise compliance programs to detect and block North Korean transactional activity. Sanctions on North Korea have been increasing throughout the years and have become more challenging for financial institutions and global regulating bodies. Further sanctions are predicted to come as North Korea has not shown signs of cooperation. This paper analyzes how effective North Korean sanctions are by measuring North Korean compliance to the sanctions and the degree of damage to their economy. The measure of effective sanctions will also be discovered by assessing the obstacles a financial institution's compliance programs experience by detecting and blocking North Korean transactional activity as well as by assessing if the sanctions are damaging the North Korean economy. This paper proposes a model for effective compliance with financial sanctions against North Korea that can be easily introduced to fit any unique compliance program.