• Journal of Navigation and Port Research
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• v.42 no.5
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• pp.357-364
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• 2018

Colombo noticeably became the most economical gateway to the Indian subcontinent, in terms of cost as well as time. The Colombo Port Expansion Project (CPEP) started commencement with the purpose of accommodating mega ships, under the long-term strategies of making Colombo the hub of South Asia. In this context, the purpose of this study is to investigate the causal relationship between Indian ports' originated container traffic, and total transshipments of the port of Colombo, and also to identify the nature of the causality between the two variables, evaluating Granger causality test results. It finds unidirectional causality from total transshipments of Colombo to Indian ports' originated transshipments in the port of Colombo. It suggested that ongoing port expansion projects, opening up for new markets and attracting new shipping lines in the port of Colombo, have generated significant impact on Indian ports' container traffic, via the port of Colombo. Findings would be valuable for future forecasting of container traffic in Colombo port and the policy-making process in the port as well.

• Strategy21
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• s.46
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• pp.239-276
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• 2020

The failure of early economic sanctions aimed at hurting the overall economies of targeted states called for a more sophisticated design of economic sanctions. This paved way for the advent of 'smart sanctions,' which target the supporters of the regime instead of the public mass. Despite controversies over the effectiveness of economic sanctions as a coercive tool to change the behavior of a targeted state, the transformation from 'comprehensive sanctions' to 'smart sanctions' is gaining the status of a legitimate method to impose punishment on states that do not conform to international norms, the nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction in this particular context of the paper. The five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council proved that it can come to an accord on imposing economic sanctions over adopting resolutions on waging military war with targeted states. The North Korean nuclear issue has been the biggest security threat to countries in the region, even for China out of fear that further developments of nuclear weapons in North Korea might lead to a 'domino-effect,' leading to nuclear proliferation in the Northeast Asia region. Economic sanctions had been adopted by the UNSC as early as 2006 after the first North Korean nuclear test and has continually strengthened sanctions measures at each stage of North Korean weapons development. While dubious of the effectiveness of early sanctions on North Korea, recent sanctions that limit North Korea's exports of coal and imports of oil seem to have an impact on the regime, inducing Kim Jong-un to commit to peaceful talks since 2018. The purpose of this paper is to add a variable to the factors determining the success of economic sanctions on North Korea: preventing North Korea's evasion efforts by conducting illegal transshipments at sea. I first analyze the cause of recent success in the economic sanctions that led Kim Jong-un to engage in talks and add the maritime element to the argument. There are three conditions for the success of the sanctions regime, and they are: (1) smart sanctions, targeting commodities and support groups (elites) vital to regime survival., (2) China's faithful participation in the sanctions regime, and finally, (3) preventing North Korea's maritime evasion efforts.