South Africa: What Is to Be Done

The Logic of Priorities

“…Donald Woods (1978) describes apartheid in South Africa as "government of the blacks, by the whites, for the whites." Since the early 1970s, a new black movement has emerged to challenge the white regime, "taking as its leitmotif the raising of black consciousness" (Ferguson and Cotter, 1978). This has led to increasingly violent uprisings in black communities mainly by university students and urban blacks, inviting white police intervention and serious suppression of black organizations.…”

International Trade and Investment Sanctions

“…The goal of this article is to alleviate those deficiencies. The word &dquo;sanctions&dquo; covers a wide variety of international actions (see, e.g., Ferguson and Cotter, 1978). Here, we shall consider only one set of such actions, where South Africa's international trade of goods and factors of production is impeded by agreement among its trading partners.…”

Institutionalizing Peace through Commerce: Engagement or Divestment in South African and Sudan

“…After the Sharpsville Massacre, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 134 which called upon the South African government to abandon the policy 2 (Mansson, 2005). Nevertheless, the international political norm of nonintervention in domestic affairs tended to hold sway, and South Africa relied upon the United States, Britain, and France to apply their UN Security Council vetoes to prevent any meaningful international action at that point (Ferguson and Cotter, 1978). With Western governments still refusing to intervene and challenge apartheid policy, multinational business continued business as usual.…”

“…For example, in 1962, UN Resolution 1761 called for economic sanctions on South Africa, and in 1968, General Assembly Resolution 2396 asserted that South Africa's trading partners and the activities of foreign financial and business interests collaborated with the South African Government and encouraged its racial policies. 3 However, these calls for sanctions were opposed by Western nations that had economic interests in South Africa, as the United States, Britain, and France used their positions in the UN Security Council to prevent mandatory international action (Ferguson and Cotter, 1978;Williams, 1987). Thus, the activist groups challenged the moral legitimacy of the separation thesis, asserting that businesses do have a responsibility to consider the moral implications of their economic actions.…”

“…The UN Security Council issued more resolutions condemning apartheid and demanding an end to the violence, 5 but for the first time ever, the Security Council declared apartheid to be a threat to international peace and security, thereby invoking Chapter VII of the UN Charter and making the comprehensive arms embargo against South Africa mandatory (Ferguson and Cotter, 1978). This was a fundamental change from the status quo because South Africa could no longer rely on the protection of the vetoes of Britain, France, or the United States (at least not under the Carter Administration) in the UN Security Council.…”