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By Park Hyun, Washington correspondent

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has prepared a draft of a resolution for stronger sanctions against North Korea. The resolution, which is expected to be passed on Mar. 7 (EST), would ban financial transactions with North Korea that are linked to weapons of mass destruction in the international financial market and monitor illegal activity by North Korean diplomats.

Shortly after a meeting of the UNSC at the UN Headquarters in New York on Mar. 5, Susan Rice, US ambassador to the UN, told reporters that the resolution was tougher than before and would have significant and enhanced legal force. “North Korea will be subject to some of the toughest sanctions imposed by the United Nations,” Rice said, “The breadth and scope of these sanctions is exceptional.”

What sets the draft apart is that it makes mandatory sanctions that the existing resolution had only recommended and urged UN member nations to carry out. It makes it compulsory to search vessels that are suspected of carrying items that the UN has forbidden from being traded with North Korea, along with making it mandatory to freeze financial transactions linked to trade in forbidden items.

The resolution also requires a crackdown on so-called “bulk cash” transfers, which refers to efforts to evade financial surveillance by transferring large amounts of cash, which are stuffed in freight or in items taken on planes. The resolution aims to effectively shut down the movement of suspicious goods into and out of North Korea through searching vessels and banning financial transfers.

While these items were included in UN Resolution 2087, which was adopted in January, the resolution did no more than urge member states to carry them out. Member states will not be penalized even if they do not implement the mandatory provisions, but it is more likely that they will carry them out now compared to when they were merely recommendations, since noncompliance can have an effect on the reputations of member states.

This draft contains the first provision urging that diplomats be placed under surveillance to insure they are not engaging in illegal activity, despite the fact that they ordinarily enjoy diplomatic immunity. This could provoke controversy, as it runs contrary to the Vienna Convention, which states that diplomats must not be subjected to arrest or detention by the state hosting them, and that their dignity must not be infringed upon.

The draft also includes new provisions which call for aircraft suspected of containing forbidden items to not be permitted to take off or land and that urge countries to expel any agents who are acting on behalf of North Korean corporations that are subject to sanctions. Furthermore, North Korea’s uranium enrichment program is specified for the first time, and goods that are associated with this are placed under embargo. The resolution includes yachts, racecars, jewelry, and luxury cars among the goods that are forbidden from import as a way to target the North Korean elite. Further, three individuals and two corporations are added to the list of entities subject to freezing of assets and ban on travel.

Insofar as China has already given its consent, it is very likely that the draft will be approved in its current format. “We support action taken by the council, but we think that action should be proportionate, should be balanced and focused on bringing down the tension and focusing on the diplomatic track,” Li Baodong, Chinese ambassador to the UN, told Reuters on Mar. 5. “A strong signal must be sent out that a nuclear test is against the will of the international community,” added Li.

The resolution is tougher than experts had expected. “Going after the banking system in a broad brush way is arguably the strongest thing on this list,” said Evans J. R. Revere, a former US Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, in the New York Times. “It does begin to eat into the ability of North Korea to finance many things.” Revere suggested that North Korea’s strong reaction had numerous causes, including China’s agreement to the sanctions, the South Korea-US military exercises, and South Korean president Park Geun-hye’s tough stance toward the country.

However, the question of how much of an impact the resolution will have on North Korea will depend on to what extent China cooperates in enforcing its provisions, since the majority of North Korea’s overseas financial activity takes place with that country.

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