Just how tough is the North Korea sanctions regime? DPRK a special case; cutting-and-pasting from other rogue states’ sanctions won’t work

There are many mixed messages among commentators and policymakers about whether or not the sanctions regime in place against the DPRK is severe or not. Some say that sanctions are already “maxed out” with little left to sanction, others insist that there is plenty of headroom left. If comparisons are made, it is often about whether or not the Iranian sanctions regime should be “cut and pasted” onto the DPRK. But what would that look like?

The purpose of this article is to clear some of this confusion by comparing the DPRK sanctions regime with the sanctions regimes against other countries which pursued nuclear weapons: South Africa, Iraq, India, Pakistan and Iran. Most space is given to Iran because this is the most cited comparator, but it is important to look at the others too because they each add further context.