From the U.S. Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov

Transcript for: North Korea Sanctions

Description: Audio Interview by GAO staff with Tom Melito, Director,
International Affairs and Trade

Related GAO Work: GAO-15-485: North Korea Sanctions: United States Has 
Increased Flexibility to Impose Sanctions, but United Nations Is 
Impeded by a Lack of Member State Reports

Released: May 2015

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[ Narrator: ] Welcome to GAO's Watchdog Report, your source for news and
information from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. It's May
2015. North Korean tests of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles
threaten the United States, and other United Nations member states.
These types of actions have prompted the United States and the UN to
impose sanctions on North Korea. A team led by Tom Melito, a director in
GAO's International Affairs and Trade team, recently reviewed US and UN
sanctions on North Korea. GAO's Jacques Arsenault sat down with Tom to
discuss what they found.

[ Jacques Arsenault: ] Could you talk about how long the US and the UN
have imposed sanctions on North Korea? And what are some of the things
that the sanctions are intended to block?

[ Tom Melito: ] The US government has had sanctions against North Korea
since the Korean War. However, after North Korea set off a nuclear
device, both the US and the UN imposed sanctions, which was in 2006. The
purpose of the sanctions is to inhibit the proliferation of weapons of
mass destruction. The US government does this through trade sanctions,
as well as through targeting of the assets of high-level officials. The
UN does similarly. It is trying to restrict the trade of weapons of mass
destruction and also in the access of luxury goods for high-level
officials.

[ Jacques Arsenault: ] North Korea is a notoriously closed society. What
kinds of challenges does this create when enforcing sanctions or
evaluating whether they're effective?

[ Tom Melito: ] The closed nature of North Korea is actually an
impediment to the implementation of sanctions. When the US or the UN
tries to impose sanctions, they try to be very specific about what
happened and who did it. And the way you go about that is to build an
evidentiary case on the individuals who are involved. And given the
enclosed nature of North Korean society, it's very difficult to get that
information. The US recognized this. And following the hack of Sony
Pictures in 2014, the US has a new Executive Order, which allows the US
government to sanction an individual, purely by the fact that they are
members of the North Korean government. That said, both Treasury and
State are very clear. They still work very hard to build the evidentiary
files. But now they know that they can actually -- when they have a case
that may not be as clean or as clear as they want it to be, still able
to impose sanctions.

[ Jacques Arsenault: ] Let me ask you then, what did you find out about
how well these sanctions are working?

[ Tom Melito: ] Since 2006, the US government has sanctioned 86 North
Korean individuals. Similarly, the UN has designated 32 either
individuals or companies for sanctions-related activities. Including a
ship

that was transporting Cuban weapons in 2013. However, the request letter
that originally came was quite extensive. and we are leaving to a future
report, actual impact on other sanctions on the purposes of the
sanctions.

[ Jacques Arsenault: ] So then what recommendations is GAO making in
this report to improve the implementation of sanctions?

[ Tom Melito: ] So one advantage of the UN sanctions is it's universal.
In that, if you're a member state of the UN, you are required to pursue
these sanctions. That gives it a global nature that just US sanctions
will not have. However, the fact is, it's a technical exercise to try to
impose these sanctions. And we found that more than half of the member
states were not filing the required reports to the UN on their
activities trying to pursue sanctions. We think some of this can be
improved through technical assistance. So we asked the Secretary of
State to work with the Security Council in order to reach out to states
who have not completed their report, and see if they can benefit from
the US assistance -- US or UN assistance.

[ Jacques Arsenault: ] And finally, what would you say is the bottom
line of this report?

[ Tom Melito: ] Bottom line is that both the US and the UN have
processes in place to impose sanctions. However, the closed nature of
the North Korean society makes it difficult to impose those sanctions.
The US has an approach now, which hopefully overcomes that. But we think
the UN would benefit from increased technical assistance from member
states that maybe can help them with that.

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next episode of GAO's Watchdog Report for more from the congressional
watchdog, the U.S. Government Accountability Office.