Law and Development of Cuba under US-led Sanctions and its Implications for HR757

Abstract

This paper examines the law and development of Cuba under the duress of US sanctions, examining impacts and consequences of those sanctions as well as their socio-political and economic reasons. By configuring sanctions as the departure point of this analysis of Cubas law and development, this paper provides an analysis of parallels that can be drawn to the North Korea Sanctions and Policy Enhancement Act of 2016, or HR757. By identifying the similarities between HR757 and the sanctions placed against Cuba, this paper shows that the unpredictable impacts of the Cuba sanctions can be extrapolated to the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK).

The unique features of the Cuban revolutionary narrative during an equally extraordinary period in modern history christened the economic sanction of the Cold War era: targeted not at specific actions, but rather the personality of a State and its behaviour. The strong ideological language in these sanction mechanisms ignited equally ideological recalcitrance against them by Cuba. One can identify similar trends in the DPRK, though at significantly larger stakes with access to innovatively destructive instruments of war. The high stakes of this final front of the Cold War make it imperative to ensure that sanctions, as perhaps one of the final steps before military action, are informed rather than absolved by history.