The United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution on March 2nd that imposes tough new sanctions and tightens some of its existing measures against North Korea (the DPRK). Resolution 2270 (2016) is the Security Council’s strongest response to date to the rogue North Korean regime’s ongoing nuclear and ballistic missile-related test activities in violation of a series of prior Security Council resolutions. The triggering events leading up to this latest resolution were North Korea’s January 2016 nuclear test and February rocket launch. These provocations were too much even for China, North Korea’s closest trading partner, which cooperated constructively with the United States to reach consensus on the resolution’s text after several weeks of negotiations.
President Obama issued a statement following the vote that highlighted his belief in the importance of the resolution: “Today, the international community, speaking with one voice, has sent Pyongyang a simple message: North Korea must abandon these dangerous programs and choose a better path for its people.”
In reality, the latest resolution is just a piece of paper that is unlikely to change North Korea’s behavior. U.S. Ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, acknowledged that “the true measure of Resolution 2270 will be whether the rigor with which states implement these sanctions matches the rigor we can anticipate the DPRK will apply to attempting to evade them – that’s what they do.”
In fact, unless the United States and its principal allies in the Asian Pacific region and elsewhere are prepared to vigorously enforce the resolution’s terms, including broader restrictions on trade and financial transactions, a more comprehensive arms embargo and the new mandatory cargo inspection regime, North Korea will be more emboldened than ever. Just hours after the Security Council passed Resolution 2270, North Korea showed what it thought of the resolution by firing six short-range projectiles into the sea.