The Sunday Mail
Sunday Mail Reporter
UNILATERAL sanctions imposed on developing countries should be lifted unconditionally because they infringe on human rights and mostly affect vulnerable groups in society, a senior United Nations official has said.
In a statement on Wednesday, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Negative Impact of the Unilateral Coercive Measures on the Enjoyment of Human Rights, Ms Alena Douhan, called for action from sanctioning governments to ensure that sanctions do not affect ordinary citizens.
Ms Douhan said sanctions were largely affecting women, children, people with disabilities and refugees among other vulnerable groups.
Social or humanitarian aid “very often can’t be supplied because of sanctions, despite existing exemptions”, she said.
“The complexity of sanctions regulations, combined with extraterritorial enforcement and heavy penalties, have led to widespread over-compliance with unilateral sanctions by entities out of fear of the consequences of inadvertent violations breaches”.
Ms Douhan was recently in Zimbabwe on a 10-day fact-finding mission to assess the impact of sanctions imposed on the country by the United States and other Western nations.
Her mission concluded that the illegal economic sanctions were causing suffering in the country.
Ms Douhan noted that a country targeted by unilateral sanctions can “slide backward on the development scale”, and warned that “sanctions may be a major threat preventing targeted countries from achieving the universal Sustainable Development Goals that are meant to improve the lives of everyone”.
In a recent statement, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ms Michelle Bachelet, called for the reassessment of sanctions.
“When sanctions target an entire country, or address entire economic sectors, it is the most vulnerable people in that country — those who are least protected — who are likely to be worst harmed”, she said.
“It has long been clear that obstacles to the import of vital medical supplies in countries . . . create long-lasting harm to vulnerable communities”, said the UN rights chief.
“The people of these countries are in no way responsible for the policies being targeted by sanctions, and to varying degrees have already been living in a precarious situation for prolonged periods through no fault of their own”.
In March 2020, less than two weeks
after Covid-19 was declared a global pandemic, Ms Bachelet called for sanctions that affect the health sector to be eased or suspended.
A study commissioned by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Trade estimates that the country could have lost US$42 billion in revenue over the past 20 years as a result of sanctions.
