Can North Korea overtake South Africa?

Via Oxblog’s Patrick Belton, I see that North Korea has managed to get itself sanctioned by another international organization: Political rivals Japan and North Korea are set to play in a World Cup football qualifier in an empty stadium in Bangkok. The two teams will take to the field on Wednesday night (1030 GMT, 0630 ...

By , a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast.

Via Oxblog’s Patrick Belton, I see that North Korea has managed to get itself sanctioned by another international organization:

Political rivals Japan and North Korea are set to play in a World Cup football qualifier in an empty stadium in Bangkok. The two teams will take to the field on Wednesday night (1030 GMT, 0630 ET) amid boosted security measures that will ensure no North Korean or Japanese fans are in sight. In a rare move, the World Cup governing body FIFA moved the game from Pyongyang to Bangkok to punish North Korea after unruly crowd behavior during the country’s game against Iran in Pyongyang in March.

This step by FIFA — and North Korea’s ongoing campaign for Rogue State of the Year — got me to wondering: which country in the world has been the most popular target of sanctions approved by an international organization? As someone who’s written a bit about economic sanctions, I confess to not having a definitive answer — to my knowledge, no one has ever researched this question. Certainly North Korea has been moving up in the ranks — the UN (back during the Korean War), the IAEA in 1994, and now FIFA. However, I’d still be willing to bet that the answer to this question is apartheid-era South Africa. At one point or another, the United Nations, Organization for African Unity, European Economic Community, South African Development Community, and the Commonwealth imposed sancdtions — not to mention the International Olympic Committee and FIFA. The hard working staff here at danieldrezner.com will be on top of this issue to see if and when North Korea can overtake the rogue state of the twentieth century. I hjave no doubt that the regime in Pyongyang is capable of pulling this off.

Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast. Twitter: @dandrezner

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