This is Davos: A Swiss mountain resort, which brings together both business leaders
and politicians from the international community to discuss some of the
world’s most pressing issues every January.
Only this winter, there is one notable exception.
This is the former Russia House, which was converted into the “Russian War Crimes House”
in 2022, showcasing an art exhibit of the atrocities committed in Ukraine.
In 2023, a new tenant has taken over and there’s no trace of Russia’s presence.
Russian public figures and business delegates — once a key presence here — have been
banned from the forum this year, reflecting the country’s broader ousting from the international
community following President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Given the circumstances and the violation of the UN charter, it was impossible to have
Russian representatives join us in dialogue.
There are countries where, when a representative walks into a room, other representatives walk out.
Yet, further along the promenade, as on the global stage, other states accused by the
international community of human rights abuses are well represented.
That begs the question: who decides which countries should receive a warm welcome and
the ones that get frozen out of the international community?
A pariah state is typically defined as one outcast from the international community and
often subject to isolation and sanctions by nations that view its actions as unacceptable.
Perhaps the most widely accepted example of a pariah state is North Korea, which has been
largely isolated from the global stage for more than half a century.
The country is known for behaving entirely outside of international norms, with assassinations
on foreign soil, missile provocations and inflammatory rhetoric among its wrongdoings.
But there is no unanimous agreement or criteria for the label.
The term ‘pariah state’ has origins in Western diplomatic discourse and is used sparingly,
generally reserved for those nations guilty of gross human rights abuses,
supporting international terrorism or breaking nuclear non-proliferation laws.
However, its application has varied over the years.
Iran, which has a history of using hostages as a tool of statecraft, has drifted in and
out of pariah status for several decades.
Iran has been considered a pariah state, sort of, off and on.
There are times when Iran is more interested in engaging and interested in negotiating,
and times when Iran seems to be more threatening to other countries in the region.
Oftentimes that threatening behavior gets countries to take a step back.
But oftentimes then looking for a way to reengage the Iranians.
Cuba, which has been occasionally labelled as a pariah state, was neither a state sponsor
of terrorism nor possessed weapons of mass destruction.
Other countries which have been labelled pariah states inconsistently include Afghanistan and Syria.
Then, there are nations with the label that have caused divisions among the international community.
In 2002, Zimbabwe was dubbed a “self-made pariah” by the U.K. over then President
Robert Mugabe’s land reform program, which seemingly aimed to redistribute land from
minority white citizens to the majority black population.
The scheme resulted in accusations of human-rights abuses, prompting the U.S. and the European Union
to sanction the country — much to the discomfort of other African leaders.
Ethel Kuuya has worked as a public policy advisor across Sub-Saharan Africa, including
within the Southern African Development Community.
There were some violations of human rights, I don’t dispute that at all.
But if we were to put that in context of other countries that have been sweeping violators
of human rights and have somehow not fallen into the ‘you go and sit in the naughty
corner’ type of policies that the West tends to apply, there was a choice to be very strongarmed
around a country that had decided to dare to reclaim some of the land.
Sanctions are one of the tools usually employed against pariah states to influence a desired outcome.
Following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, Western nations leveled sanctions against
more than 8,000 Russian individuals and around 2,300 Russian entities in a bid to pressure
Putin and choke off funds to his war chest.
The U.S. alone implemented more than 2,500 sanctions against Russia up to November 2022
— more than any other country.
The punitive measures include seizures of vessels and aircrafts owned by Russian oligarchs.
Neighboring Belarus was also targeted over President Alexander Lukashenko’s support for Russia.
Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, leader of Belarus’s opposition democratic movement, was forced
into exile in 2020 after Lukashenko declared victory in widely disputed elections.
Lukashenko seized the power in 2020 and he’s continued repressions against Belarussian
people, and he became a co-collaborant in this war.
He provided our territory and infrastructure for attacking Ukraine, for launching missiles.
But the effectiveness of sanctions in reforming a country’s behavior remains a topic of much debate.
If countries don’t think there’s a way out of sanctions, you diminish the incentives
for them to comply.
Twenty-one years down the line after sanctions, the effects of it was not on a handful of
people, as they claimed it would affect, but it has affected an entire country.
In a study of 57 sanction programs between 1914 and 2000, just 21% were considered partly
successful, while in 65% of cases, sanctions were lifted without achieving the goal.
Meanwhile, from 1976 to 2012, United Nations sanctions led to a 25.5% aggregate decline
in the gross domestic product per capita of sanctioned countries, often hurting the most
vulnerable rather than those in charge.
From a human rights perspective, the moment you put sanctions and label a state a pariah
state, that turning away from that country to some extent can also provide cover for
certain things to continue to go on that can’t get examined because this country is a pariah state.
Back in Zimbabwe, not everyone was on board with the West’s isolation tactics, and in
2008, Russia and China, alongside South Africa, Libya and Vietnam, vetoed proposed
United Nations-level sanctions.
The absence of Western engagement served to cement new alliances between Zimbabwe and
the East, most notably via the government’s “Look East Policy,” which promoted investment
with countries like China, Singapore and Malaysia.
China has come in very strongly, creating manufacturing capacity on the ground in Zimbabwe,
as well as obviously it being an export destination for China’s products.
Countries that are so-called pariah states, they find new partners.
In the wake of Russia’s war, Moscow and Beijing have similarly strengthened their
political, economic, and military ties even as relations with the West worsened.
The fractured international response raises questions about the effectiveness of economic
and political exile in today’s increasingly divided world: one in which global super
powers are shifting, and Western dominance is less assured.
I’ve heard this from people: You know what, Ukraine’s really far from us, this isn’t our fight.
And I think this is partly a reflection of Russia and China working to undermine global solidarity
because of a sense that global solidarity is a cover for U.S. hegemony.
And by the way, whenever China’s in a bilateral relationship with another country, except
for the United States, it’s the stronger power. That's the way they want the world to operate.
It also refocuses the debate on how much countries should engage with their adversaries
and to what extent they should do so.
With that in mind, to what extent is it possible for a country to rehabilitate from pariah status?
And what might it take to do so?
Russia’s part of the international system and at some point it will return to the global fold.
But certainly, Russian leaders know what they need to do to make that happen.
I ask to distinguish our country.
Lukashenko’s regime, who have to be pariahs, he has to be declared a sponsor of terrorism
and a war criminal.
We have been living for 28 years under a dictatorship, so people also have to know how to communicate.
So, of course, I am sure that we will prevail.
Historically, such turnarounds are not unheard of.
One example is Israel, which was completely isolated in the Middle East for decades … Sometimes
it involves a regime change.
Iraq used to be a pariah state under Saddam Hussein and no longer is.
Libya was an example of a country without going through regime change that got off the
pariah list by behaving differently.
Indeed, sometimes countries can be obliged to overcome moral differences in the name
of realpolitik or pragmatism.
In the wake of sanctions on Russian energy, the U.S., for instance, was forced to rethink
its strained ties with Saudi Arabia and Venezuela in order to secure global supplies.
Often, however, the diplomatic debate can ultimately come down to a clash of Western
democracies versus authoritarian regimes.
But, are there cases in which countries are too instrumental to the global economy to
be considered pariahs?
Saudi Arabia is, in many ways, too central to the global economy to be a pariah state for long
As much as people consider Mohammed bin Salman to be a pariah after the murder of Jamal Khashoggi,
I think you’re seeing a number of governments, including the United States, saying, well,
he is a senior government official, and you have to engage with him in some way.