China’s People’s Daily carried an article entitled “U.S. Unilateral Sanctions Hindering International Human Rights Development” on April 6. It reads to the following effect:

For a long time, the U.S., without any international legal grounds and authorization of the UN Security Council, has used so-called “foreign policy, state security” as a pretext for indiscriminately imposing unilateral sanctions and for flagrantly interfering in the internal affairs of other countries, thereby creating an obstacle to realizing the fundamental human rights of the people of relevant countries and aggravating the world humanitarian crisis.

U.S. Violated International Law with Indiscriminate Unilateral Sanctions

The U.S. has grown accustomed to violating international law by indiscriminately imposing unilateral sanctions. It has applied economic sanctions on many developing countries, taking their toll on nearly half the world population. This is a grave infringement upon the basic principles of the UN Charter and the fundamental rules of international law.

The U.S. violated the principle of sovereign equality with its indiscriminate unilateral sanctions. The principle of sovereign equality, one of the main principles stipulated in the UN Charter, is the fundamental rule that has to be observed by all countries in conducting foreign travel after the Second World War.

The international society should duly respect the divergences generating from civilizations and modes of development that vary from country to country, and resolve conflicts arising from such differences through dialogue from an impartial standpoint.

However, the U.S. has always adopted a high-handed attitude and imposed unilateral sanctions on other countries.

As has been admitted by the U.S. in its 2021 Sanctions Assessment Report, sanctions have become the first and foremost tool in the U.S. state security and foreign policy and in countering a series of economic threats.

The U.S. has violated the general principle of jurisdiction over the international law with its indiscriminate unilateral sanctions.

The law of a particular country remains in force only within the territory of that country and cannot be applied to any other country. No country has the right to exercise jurisdiction over an individual of another country or his/her actions. According to international law, offshore jurisdiction can be exercised only when there is “definite and sufficient contacts” between the relevant country and the person to which the law is to be applied.

But, the U.S. applied “Long-Arm Jurisdiction” and unilateral sanctions on any person or organization that has even the slightest contact with it.

For example, in 1996, it adopted what it calls “Iran and Libya Sanctions Act” and accordingly applied “Long-Arm Jurisdiction” to the entities or individuals belonging to a third country conducting trade with Iran, inflicting great economic losses on the latter.

U.S. Enforcement of Unilateral Sanctions is a Continuous Process of Pursuing Hegemony

Out of the main purpose to maintain hegemony, the U.S. is enforcing indiscriminate unilateral sanctions. After the two World Wars and the Cold War, the U.S. has emerged as the sole superpower in the world.

Since the 1990s, it unleashed the Gulf War and Kosovo War in order to maintain its supremacy. In the aftermath of the 9.11 incident, it grew even more impudent, went ahead and provoked wars in Afghanistan and Iraq one after another, and also conducted armed interventions in Libya and Syria. These wars caused heavy civilian casualties in the locale and consumed massive resources, provoking unanimous protest from the international society.

Apart from military means, the U.S. enforced sanctions employing the economic, diplomatic and other non-military means, and also enforced a series of acts such as the “Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act” and the “Countering America's Adversaries through Sanctions Act”.

According to the 2021 Sanctions Assessment Report, the number of U.S. sanctions that took effect until the 2021 fiscal year amounted up to more than 9,400. Accordingly, the external sanctions of the U.S. have increased by 933% in the year 2021 compared to 2000.

U.S. Unilateral Sanctions Infringed Upon the Human Rights in Other Countries

First, it created a serious obstacle to ensuring the rights to existence.

The right to existence constitutes the fundamentals of human rights, ranking number one among all other rights. The U.S. indiscriminately enforced unilateral sanctions, created difficulties for the countries under sanctions in developing their economy and reduced the competence of the relevant governments and people to cope with different types of dangers. As a result, those countries plunged more readily into existence crisis when disasters and accidents occurred.

The U.S. imposed illegal and unilateral sanctions upon Syria for a long period, further worsening economic crisis and the people’s livelihood of the country. When Syria was devastated by the strong earthquake in February this year, many rescue members had to dig up the rubble with bare hands as they lacked heavy equipment and rescue means.

On August 30, 2021, the U.S. withdrew from Kabul, bringing down the curtains on the 20-year-long Afghan war. When Afghanistan desperately needed funds for peaceful reconstruction of the country, the U.S. did not fulfil its due obligations but froze instead billions of U.S. dollars deposited in the Central Bank of Afghanistan. This has pushed millions of Afghans to the dead end of their lives and plunged almost 20 million into severe food shortage.

Second, it incurred dire consequences for ensuring the right to development.

Right to development is an inalienable right of a human being, affirmed by several documents on international human rights such as “Declaration on the Right to Development” and the “Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action”.

The reckless enforcement of unilateral sanctions by the U.S. had a huge impact upon the development of the countries and people under sanctions.

According to statistics, from August 1990 to May 2003 Iraq suffered a loss of US$ 150 billion on income from oil due to U.S. sanctions. As a result, per-capita national income has yet to reach the level of 1990 to date.

Unilateral sanctions also inflicted untold damages on the development of individual people.

Taking countries like Venezuela, Cuba, Syria and Iran for example, the U.S. sanctions were of major impediment to telephone conferences and data exchange between the above countries and other regions. Consequently, people there were not able to receive information, education and training via network seminars and medical doctors couldn’t browse medical treatment-related databases.

Third, it had a negative impact on the right to health.

In connection with the right to health, “International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights” explicitly stipulates that “everyone has the right to enjoyment”.

The U.S. presented obstacles, in the form of economic and trade embargo, to the acquirement of medical resources for the countries under sanctions.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, unilateral sanctions of the U.S. had a huge impact on the right to health of the people in the countries under sanctions.

In 2020, the government of Iran announced that they had tried three times to purchase COVID-19 vaccine according to WHO COVID-19 vaccination plan, but the payment was suspended because of the sanctions and restriction measures on the part of the U.S.

As the U.S. prohibited the third countries from selling inhalers to Cuba, the country could not purchase inhalers necessary for the treatment of patients with serious cases of COVID-19.

The U.S. wantonly violated the international laws such as the UN Charter and the “International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights” to flagrantly infringe upon the basic rights of people in the countries under sanctions, by wielding the stick of the sanctions recklessly.

Such hegemonic acts of the U.S. constitute a factor in destroying peaceful development of the world and a stumbling block to progress in human rights.

Last March, Alena Douhan, the UN special rapporteur, pointed out that the unilateral enforcement measures of the U.S. have infringed upon such basic human rights as the right to labour and the right to freedom of action of individuals and organisations.

The international society calls for the U.S. to strictly observe the basic principles of the UN Charter and the fundamental rules of international law, to suspend illegal imposition of unilateral sanctions and to respect the right to existence, development and health of people in other countries rather than hindering the relevant countries in their efforts to use their own resources, to develop the economy and to improve public welfare.