For well over a decade, sanctions have been the international community’s go-to answer to North Korea’s growing nuclear ambitions.

Despite an initially slow-to-expand sanctions regime, Pyongyang’s repeated missile and nuclear tests of 2016-2017 resulted in a sharp expansion of UN Security Council (UNSC) resolutions.

Efforts swiftly evolved from the precision targeting of the munitions sector and elite interest in luxury goods, to UNSC sanctions expelling North Korea from the international financial system and prohibiting it from buying or selling a wide range of commodities, among others.

Today UN measures are just a small part of the North Korea sanctions regime, too,