30/45 Report of the Special Rapporteur on the negative impact of unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights, Idriss Jazairy

Human Rights Council Thirty session Agenda item 3

Promotion and protection of all human rights, civil,

political, economic, social and cultural rights,

including the right to development

Report of the Special Rapporteur on the negative impact of unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights, Idriss Jazairy

Summary

The present annual report is the first to be submitted to the Human Rights Council

by the first Special Rapporteur on the negative impact of unilateral coercive measures on

the enjoyment of human rights, Idriss Jazairy.

In the report, the Special Rapporteur describes the activities undertaken since taking

office in 1 May 2015 and his views on the foundations and context of the mandate. He

provides some clarifying definitions concerning unilateral coercive measures and some

elements on guidance from international law, human rights law and humanitarian law.

Finally, he presents some preliminary observations, the implementation strategy for the

mandate and some projected activities.

United Nations A/HRC/30/45

Contents

Page

I. Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 3

II. Activities of the Special Rapporteur ................................................................................................ 3

III. Reasons for a special procedure on the adverse human rights impact of unilateral

coercive measures ............................................................................................................................ 4

IV. Clarifying definitions concerning unilateral coercive measures....................................................... 4

V. Historical retrospect ......................................................................................................................... 7

A. Early uses of unilateral coercive measures .............................................................................. 7

B. Current trends .......................................................................................................................... 8

VI. Negative human rights impacts: how to eliminate or mitigate them and to provide redress

for their victims and guidance from international law, human rights law

and humanitarian law ....................................................................................................................... 9

A. Elimination of unilateral coercive measures or restrictions to their use .................................. 9

B. International legal framework, including human rights law and international

human rights law...................................................................................................................... 10

C. Issues of remedies and redress ................................................................................................. 13

VII. Projected activities of the Special Rapporteur .................................................................................. 13

A. Information gathering .............................................................................................................. 13

B. Study and evaluation of the practice of unilateral coercive measures and its

adverse impact on human rights .............................................................................................. 14

C. Drafting of guidelines and formulation of recommendations .................................................. 15

D. Review and evaluation of mechanisms for assessment and redress ......................................... 16

E. Contribution to strengthen the capacity of the Office of the United Nations

High Commissioner for Human Rights to provide technical assistance

and advisory services to affected countries.............................................................................. 17

VIII. Conclusion ....................................................................................................................................... 17

I. Introduction

1. In its resolution 27/21, the Human Rights Council decided to appoint a Special

Rapporteur on the negative impact of unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of

human rights. The Special Rapporteur was appointed at the 28th session of the Council and

took office in May 2015.

2. The present report is submitted to the Human Rights Council by the first Special

Rapporteur on the negative impact of unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of

human rights, Idriss Jazairy, pursuant to the aforementioned resolution. In it, the Special

Rapporteur lists the activities he undertook from 1 May to 30 July 2015 and provides his

preliminary considerations concerning the foundations and context of the mandate. He also

presents some preliminary observations, the implementation strategy for the mandate and

some projected activities.

II. Activities of the Special Rapporteur

3. The activities of the Special Rapporteur are carried out in accordance with Human

Rights Council resolution 27/21.

4. Since his appointment in March 2015, the Special Rapporteur has requested

invitations to visit Cuba, Iran (Islamic Republic of) and the United States of America. He

has been invited to visit the Sudan. The Special Rapporteur would like to thank the

Government of the Sudan for the invitation and has confirmed the visit for November 2015.

5. From 1 May to 30 July 2015, the Special Rapporteur sent a letter to all Member

States and relevant stakeholders, including civil society, requesting information to capture

the present situation on unilateral coercive measures. He has also reached out to all special

procedures and treaty bodies with a similar communication. The Special Rapporteur in

addition requested that the human rights mechanisms provide information on the respective

work of the mechanism on issues concerning unilateral coercive measures.

6. From 8 to 12 June 2015, the Special rapporteur participated in the 22nd meeting of

special procedures mandate holders, held in Geneva.

7. Since his appointment, the Special Rapporteur has also met with representatives of

Iran (Islamic Republic of), the Russian Federation, the Sudan, the United States and the

European Union. He has also held informal consultations with academia working on

Security Council sanctions and on unilateral coercive measures.

8. On 6 July 2015, the Special Rapporteur issued a press release welcoming the re-

establishment of formal diplomatic relations between Cuba and the United States and

calling for the embargo to be lifted.

9. On 14 July 2015, the Special Rapporteur issued a press release welcoming the

nuclear agreement reached between Iran (Islamic Republic of) and the five plus one group

of China, France, Germany, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain

and Northern Ireland and the United States, and calling for the immediate lifting of

sanctions.

III. Reasons for a special procedure on the adverse human rights impact of unilateral coercive measures

10. In its Article 55(c), the Charter of the United Nations calls upon the United Nations

to promote “universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamental

freedoms”. Likewise, the Vienna Declaration asserted the following that “the universal

nature of these rights and freedoms is beyond question”. Furthermore, In its resolution

60/251, the General Assembly decided that the Human Rights Council should “be

responsible for promoting universal respect for the protection of all human rights and

fundamental freedoms for all, without distinction of any kind and in a fair and equal

manner”.

11. Emphasis here is on “universal”: the thrust of the provisions of human rights treaties

and covenants relate mainly to national jurisdictions of States, although some general

comments of treaty bodies, such as general comments No. 8, No. 12 or No. 14 of the

Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights do refer to extraterritorial “sanctions”.

From the point of view of the victims of violations of human rights on the ground,

addressing only the adverse human rights impact of domestic measures would leave a

protection gap that falls short of the desired universality of human rights. It also stands to

reason that the International Bill of Human Rights, which condemns violations of human

rights by authorities in the territories under their jurisdiction, would also condemn such

violations if perpetrated by the same authorities outside their own borders. The protection

gap became painfully obvious during the 1990s, which has been referred to as the

“sanctions decade”.1 At that time, the population of States targeted by external “sanctions”,

such as Iraq, and in particular women and newborn children, suffered most acutely from

comprehensive “sanctions”, which lead to the unwarranted death of many innocent people.

The special procedure, as a Charter-based human rights mechanism, is not constrained by

national jurisdictions and can thus address this protection gap. The comparative advantage

of a Charter-based body over a treaty body to address this extraterritorial dimension of

measures having an impact on human rights, was aptly underlined by the Human Rights

Council Advisory Committee in a report dated 10 February 2015.2

12. Addressing possible violations of human rights from both national and foreign

sources is indeed acting to promote universal respect for the promotion of human rights and

fundamental freedoms, as the Human Rights Council was mandated to do by the General

Assembly in its resolution 60/251.

IV. Clarifying definitions concerning unilateral coercive measures

13. From Human Rights Council resolution 27/21, one can infer that unilateral coercive

measures are measures including, but not limited to, economic and political ones, imposed

by States or groups of States to coerce another State in order to obtain from it the

subordination of the exercise of its sovereign rights with a view to securing some specific

change in its policy.

1 David Cortright and George A. Lopez, The Sanctions Decade, Assessing United Nations Strategies in

the 1990s (Boulder, Colorado, Lynne Rienner, 2000).

2 Research-based progress report of the Human Rights Council Advisory Committee containing

recommendations on mechanisms to assess the negative impact of unilateral coercive measures on the

enjoyment of human rights and to promote accountability (A/HRC/28/74). See in particular para. 60.

14. The Special Rapporteur will consider as unilateral coercive measures, measures

other than those taken by the Security Council under article 41 of the Charter of the United

Nations. Only the latter are truly multilateral from the point of view of the United Nations,

under whose aegis the present report is being elaborated. There is a presumption that, once

the Security Council has decided on sanctions, and without prejudice to the exercise of the

right to self-defence referred to in article 51 of the Charter, Member States have to comply

with its decisions without adding to or retrenching from their content, pursuant to articles

25, 48(2) and 103 of the Charter. However, this is not always the case.

15. Coercive measures imposed by international financial institutions and regional

bodies on their own members or on candidates to membership are not usually considered as

“unilateral” as they are part of a package of rights and obligations whose prior acceptance

by target countries are conditions for membership. Take, for instance, a duty-free zone

established between an economic grouping and a partner State. The decision by the former

to withhold free-entry status to products originating in land not part of the territory of the

partner State according to international law is not a unilateral coercive measure because it is

part of an international agreement that carries with it a territorial definition known to co-

signatories.3 However, the use of international financial institutions by one or several

member States through their weighted voting rights as a conduit for their national policies

on unilateral coercive measures should be part of the remit of the present mandate.4 Finally,

coercive measures from regional groupings of countries or from one of their Member States

targeting third countries are considered as unilateral in the sense that they are imposed

pursuant to rules at no time endorsed by the targeted country.

16. Unilateral coercive measures can be comprehensive or targeted. The latter are also

referred to as “smart” measures.5 They owe this epithet to the claim that they minimize

collateral damage in terms in particular of avoiding to jeopardize the enjoyment of human

rights by the poorest and most vulnerable groups in the society of the targeted country. The

former are measures aimed at the whole economy or financial system of a country. They

tend to be indiscriminate and therefore to have adverse human rights impacts on the poorest

and most vulnerable segments of the society of the targeted country. Their effectiveness is

gauged in the light of their capacity to impose broad-based policy changes or to create

sufficient economic distress in the targeted country to incite the people to rise against their

political leadership. “Smart” coercive measures, for their part, may be aimed at certain

sectors of the economic activity of a country or be broader but specific to a circumscribed

expanse of territory. Their impact may be to destabilize a particular branch of production or

a particular geographic area. The right to work and to a decent standard of living of people

deriving their income from the sector or the region may be compromised. However, the

adverse impact on human rights in both cases is likely, in theory, to be more limited than in

the case of comprehensive coercive measures targeting a whole country.6 In practice, it may

3 Alex Barker and John Reed “European Union close to labelling Palestinian products”, Financial

Times, 20 July 2015.

4 See, for instance, the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act (Public Law 107-99-

Dec.21, 2001) of the United States of America, which provides that the Secretary of the Treasury

shall instruct the United States Executive Director to each international financial institution to oppose

and vote against: (a) any extension by the respective institution of any loan, credit or guarantee to the

Government of Zimbabwe; or (b) any cancellation or reduction of indebtedness owed by the

Government of Zimbabwe to the United States or any international financial institution.

5 Thomas J. Biersteker, “Scholarly Participation in Transnational Policy Networks: The Case of

Targeted Sanctions” in Mariano E. Bertucci and Abraham F. Lowenthal (eds.) Narrowing the Gap:

Scholars, Policy-Makers and International Affairs (Balitmore and London, Johns Hopkins University

Press, 2012).

6 See General Assembly resolution 41/128.

be difficult to distinguish between some “smart” unilateral coercive measures and

comprehensive ones, as will be exemplified hereunder.

17. Whether comprehensive or “smart”, unilateral coercive measures are hard to

reconcile with the Declaration on the Right to Development and in particular with its article

3, which stipulates that “States have the duty to cooperate with each other in ensuring

development and eliminating obstacles to development”.

18. In summary, any unilateral coercive measure imposed on a country necessarily runs

counter to some provisions of the International Bill of Human Rights or peremptory norms

and other provisions of customary law. Such measures entail, to different degrees, adverse

consequences on the enjoyment of the human rights of innocent people. There is a very

wide range of human rights that might be involved, including political, economic, social

and cultural rights. The focus of impact assessment should remain on the rights to life,

health and medical care, an adequate standard of living, food, education, work, housing and

development. The justification provided for unilateral coercive measures is the claim that

they aim at the improvement of the human rights situation overall in the targeted country.

Thus, it is said that the cost in human rights terms of the coercive measure is justified by the

greater human rights benefits expected to accrue from such measures. It remains to be seen

whether human rights lend themselves to this kind of calculus.

19. A variety of expressions are being used to refer to unilateral coercive measures.

Some refer to them as “sanctions”, others as “restrictive measures” and others still use them

interchangeably or jointly as, say, “restrictive measures (sanctions)”. The term “restrictive

measure” does not carry the same ethical overtones of punishment as “sanctions”.

However, it eschews the mention of “unilateral”, which itself raises the issue of legitimacy

of such measures since what is unilateral can, in given circumstances, lack legitimacy. The

term “unilateral coercive measures”, though more cumbersome, has the advantage of not

prejudging any of the aforementioned, rather controversial, issues.

20. The Special Rapporteur will use the expression “source countries” when referring to

countries initiating and applying unilateral coercive measures and the expression “target

countries” to mean countries that have been targeted by unilateral coercive measures,

whether the latter themselves are comprehensive or targeted at a particular sector, area or at

specific persons.

21. It may be said that the “sanctioning” authority, in order to be legitimate, should have

jurisdiction over the “sanctioned” State. It might have to be mandated by the international

community to uphold international standards and coerce “deviant” States into conforming

to an international agreement or to internationally accepted norms of conduct. It might

even, in certain circumstances, be entitled to do so of its own accord. Usually the Security

Council has the central authority in this regard. Yet Article 41 of the Charter of the United

Nations refers to coercive measures taken by the Council simply as “measures” rather than

“sanctions”. To suggest that States can impose “sanctions” on other States while the

Security Council itself only imposes “measures” that truly deserve to be called “multilateral

sanctions”, and which will be referred to as such by the present mandate, implies that

decisions of States that impose unilateral coercive measures have at least the same legal

cogency as those of the Security Council. It also implies that there is a hierarchy among

States, between the “sanctioning” and the “sanctioned”. This runs counter to the spirit of

the Charter and in particular to Article 2(1), which refers to the sovereign equality of all the

States Members of the United Nations.

22. Unilateral coercive measures are said to be “extraterritorial” because they are

initiated by a country or group of countries and imposed outside their national territory or

jurisdiction. The laws imposing them may have extraterritorial effect not only on targeted

countries but also on third countries in a manner that will coerce the latter to also apply the

unilateral coercive measures on the targeted country, non-compliance leading to heavy

unilateral penalties.

V. Historical retrospect

A. Early uses of unilateral coercive measures

23. There has been a spectacular increase in the resort to unilateral coercive measures

since the 1990s. However this form of pressure, which has a particularly negative impact on

the enjoyment of human rights when imposed by stronger States or groups of States against

weaker ones, is not new. There are records that indicate that already in Ancient Greece in

492 BC, the city-State of Aegina seized Athenian ships and held their passengers hostage as

a response to Athens holding Aeginians captive.7

24. In the Middle Ages, during the Crusades, religious leaders and church councils in

Europe practiced unilateral coercive measures by prohibiting the export of ships, weapons

and ammunitions to the Saracens, as Arabs or Muslims were referred to in those days.8 This

became official Holy See policy from the Council of Lateran in 1179 until it was

denounced, four centuries later, by Martin Luther.9 It is interesting to note that, already in

those days, the claim to oblige traders from third parties to apply one’s own embargo on a

target country was invoked. Thus a historian from that period, Peter the Chanter, reports the

case of the citizens of Marseilles opposing foreign traders moored in their port and intent on

shipping timber and weapons to Alexandria. They called on three bishops to intervene. The

latter obliged by excommunicating the traders who, unperturbed, sailed out of the port. The

historian reports that they had hardly covered a mile at sea when the ship sank with its crew

and cargo.10

25. A more recent case in point is the blockade of Germany after the cessation of World

War I in order to coerce that country to stand down from its opposition to certain leonine

clauses of the Treaty of Versailles. The unilateral coercive measure applied against

Germany visited untold sufferings on the German population, whose basic rights were

ignored.11 In fact, the founding fathers of the League of Nations considered coercive

measures as the backbone of its policies for the maintenance of peace. That was already a

progress on the past, when such measures and in particular blockades were a prelude to war

or part of the stratagems of war itself.

26. One could also mention the unilateral coercive measures applied at the initiative of

Western countries against the Soviet Union in 1949 — the Coordinating Committee for

Multilateral Export Controls — and China in 1951 — the China Committee — and the

7 For an account of coercive measures and blockades in Ancient Times, see C. Phillipson, The

International Law and the Custom of Ancient Greece and Rome (London, MacMillan, 1911), vol. II,

pp. 349-384.

8 See, for example, J. Muldoon, Popes, Lawyers, and Infidels. The Church and the Non-Christian

World 1250-1550 (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1979); and S.K. Stantchev,

Embargo: The Origins of an Idea and the Implications of a Policy in Europe and the Mediterranean,

ca. 1100 – ca. 1500 (Michigan, University of Michigan, 2009).

9 S.K. Stantchev, Spiritual Rationality: Papal Embargo as Cultural Practice (Oxford, Oxford

University Press, 2014).

10 See John Baldwin, Masters, Princes and Merchants; the Social View of Peter the Chanter and his

Circle, Vol. I, (Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Press 1970) p. 267.

11 C.P. Vincent, The Politics of Hunger: The Allied Blockade of Germany, 1915-1919 (Athens, Ohio,

Ohio University Press, 1985).

entry of the Security Council into the fray of sanctions, imposing them first on Southern

Rhodesia in 1966 and then on South Africa a decade later at the initiative of developing

countries. The impact of the latter on the enjoyment of human rights of the target

population was relatively limited because the measures were circumvented by the source

countries themselves.

27. Except for the cases of Southern Rhodesia and South Africa under apartheid, most

recent unilateral coercive measures before1975 were implemented in the context of the

East-West ideological rivalry. Then came the Final Act of the Conference on Security and

Cooperation in Europe, which, in its principle VI, expressed the resolve of the signatories to

put an end to autonomous policies of coercive measures. According to that principle, the

parties to the Treaty “will likewise in all circumstances refrain from any other act of …

economic or other coercion designed to subordinate to their own interest the exercise by

another participating State of the rights inherent to sovereignty”. Experience thereafter did

not live up to expectations as unilateral coercive measures were redeployed in the direction

of developing countries and then escalated again inter alia between the West and the

Russian Federation as a result of tension on Crimea and Eastern Ukraine.

28. Most current unilateral coercive measures have been imposed at great cost, in terms

of the human rights of the poorest and most vulnerable groups, by developed countries on

developing countries. There are a few examples of the reverse situation, such as the Arab

oil embargo of 1973 against Western States in response to the position the latter took during

the 1973 Arab-Israeli War. There are also cases of developing countries imposing unilateral

coercive measures on neighbouring States for short periods of time.

B. Current trends

29. Observed trends do not point to advanced countries giving up the resort to unilateral

coercive measures, much to the contrary. This is not to say, however, that the situation has

remained static. The Security Council has given up resorting to comprehensive sanctions

since 1994, when it last imposed them on Haiti. Following this example, source countries

have generally been moving away from comprehensive sanctions to resort rather to “smart”

sanctions. These are focused on a particular territory within a target country, on a specific

activity, for example, non-proliferation or on a particular category of traded goods, such as

the arms trade or the commodity trade. There is also increasing resort to “smart” sanctions

that target natural or corporate persons on the basis of their supposed involvement in policy

decisions of their State that are challenged by the country or group of countries initiating

the unilateral coercive measures. A corpus of legal rules has been devised to redress the

excesses of such measures and to submit their use to certain conditions while introducing

some measure of due process and independent assessment to gauge the impact of such

measures on human rights. This is a positive evolution. It tends to limit the collateral

damage of such measures on unintended groups and therefore deserves to be welcomed.

30. The evolution has not been homogeneous in source countries. There is therefore a

need to review the progress achieved in different source countries and to consider the

possibility of promoting the “best practices” of some such countries or groups thereof to the

benefit of others as a step toward the elaboration of “next practices”.

31. In reality, however, it is not always easy to translate good intentions in the capitals

of advanced countries into measures that safeguard human rights in the day-to-day life of

remote communities in the developing world. Thus, the introduction of financial coercive

measures such as a ban on the use of international interbank financial telecommunications

or a measure undermining the principle of immunity of a central bank’s assets can, because

of their indiscriminate character, be tantamount to the reintroduction of comprehensive

sanctions. Likewise, the superimposition of targeted unilateral coercive measures on

Security Council sanctions may distort the purpose of the latter, putting their initial balance

out of kilter. The result may be to transform what was intended to be a “smart” coercive

sanction into a comprehensive coercive measure. In the same way, when a number of

diverse “smart” unilateral coercive measures converge on the same country, their

summation may become a comprehensive coercive measure. Nor does this

comprehensiveness, which carries a particularly high cost in terms of adverse human rights

impact, necessarily increase the efficiency of the measures. Two cases in point are the

coercive measures imposed on Cuba and Iran (Islamic Republic of). It is fortunate that,

under the recent initiative of the President of the United States, targeted measures that,

when added up become comprehensive coercive measures, are now being called into

question. The point is illustrated by the United States Secretary of State, who referred to the

transition in relations between the United States and Cuba as taking place because the

President “made a personal, fundamental decision to change a policy that didn’t work and

that had been in place not working for far too long”.12

32. More generally, gaps still occur between the safeguards surrounding policy on

unilateral coercive measures and the real-life adverse human rights impacts of such

measures. These gaps need to be investigated, identified and overcome.

33. Progress achieved by source countries in fine-tuning policies on unilateral coercive

measures has resulted, inter alia, in the European Union giving up resort to autonomous

comprehensive sanctions. However, when targeting a vital sector such as oil and petroleum

product exports, such “targeted” measures come to affect, at least indirectly, the whole

economy or financial system of a country. There is now also greater recognition that,

contrary to past practice, the purpose of unilateral coercive measures should not be to

advance the economic interests of source countries. Their proclaimed objective is of late

becoming “the upholding of international law, human rights law and humanitarian law”.

VI. Negative human rights impacts: how to eliminate or mitigate them and to provide redress for their victims and guidance from international law, human rights law and humanitarian law

A. Elimination of unilateral coercive measures or restrictions to their use

34. The most obvious answer to the first question is to renounce unilateral coercive

measures as a tool of foreign policy in recognition of the overarching principle of self-

determination proclaimed in articles 1 of both the International Covenant on Civil and

Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. It

is also a recognized principle of customary international law that even economic measures

not otherwise prohibited become unlawful if they coerce a State to take action in an area in

which it has the right to decide freely. The Vienna Declaration itself, in its part I, paragraph

31, called upon all States “to refrain from any unilateral measure not in accordance with

international law and the Charter of the United Nations that create obstacles to trade

relations among States and impedes the full realization of the human rights set forth in the

Universal Declaration of Human Rights and international human rights instruments in

particular the right of everyone to a standard of living adequate for their health and well-

being including food and medical care, housing and the necessary social services”.

Likewise, the Declaration on Principles of International Law Concerning Friendly Relations

12 See www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2015/07/244542.htm.

and Cooperation among States in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations13 as

well as article 32 of General Assembly resolution 3281 (XXIX) stipulate that no State may

use or encourage the use of economic, political or any other type of measure to coerce

another State in order to obtain from it the subordination of the exercise of its sovereign

right. This gives legitimacy to the position expressed by developing countries: they reject

the imposition of laws and regulations with extraterritorial impact and all other forms of

coercive economic measures, including unilateral sanctions, against developing countries

and call for their elimination.14

35. The Vienna Declaration also calls on States to refrain from any unilateral measure

not in accordance with international law or the Charter of the United Nations. Seen from

the vantage point of source countries, the portent of the injunction revolves around the

determination of which coercive measures effectively run counter to these provisions and

which do not. The European Union Guidelines on Implementation and Evaluation of

Restrictive Measures stress that “the introduction and implementation of restrictive

measures must always be in accordance with international law. They must respect human

rights and fundamental freedoms”.15 The guidelines mention that the decisions of the

Council if the European Union in the framework of the Common Foreign and Security

Policy in this respect are even subject to judicial review by the European Court of Justice.16

In the Kadi case,17 a decision by the European Council to include a person on a terrorist list

was overturned by the European Court of Justice, despite the fact that this was by way of an

implementation of a Security Council listing that was unappealable. The adjudication was

based on a recognition that, by the standards of peremptory norms and jus cogens, the

listing of the claimant violated his human rights and failed to comply with due process.

Judging from this audacious precedent, one can draw comfort as to the independent

mechanisms to protect targets of unilateral coercive measures from their adverse impact on

human rights in the European Union context. Taking a series of recent cases where the

General Court of the European Union has annulled “restrictive measures” on human rights

grounds, it has been alleged, however, that immediately after annulment, the European

Union will often relist the targeted company within days for different reasons.18 By

contrast, in the United States, there exist limited possibilities for an individual or entity

subject to an asset freeze decided by the government office in charge of economic

sanctions, namely, the Office of Foreign Assets Control, to challenge such decision.19 Thus

far, there have been no reported judicial decisions in the United States reversing a

designation established by the Office.

B. International legal framework, including human rights law

and international humanitarian law

36. The second question needs to be answered as to what guidance international law,

international human rights law and humanitarian law can provide to eliminate or mitigate

13 General Assembly resolution 2625 (XXV), annex.

14 See in particular the Declaration of Santa Cruz of the Group of 77 and China, paras. 239-241.

15 See para. 9 of European Union document 11205/12 of 15 June 2012, available from

www.statewatch.org/news/2012/jun/eu-council-un-sanctions-guidelines-11205-12.pdf.

16 Ibid., paragraph 7.

17 European Court of Justice, Yassin A. Kadi and Al Barakaat International Foundation v. Council of

the European Union and Commission of the European Commission, 2008 Judgement.

18 “Who are you calling a rogue?”, The Economist, 20 June 2015.

19 See, for example, W.B. Hoffman, “How to Approach a new Office of Foreign Assets Control

Sanctions Program”, Stetson Law Review, Vol. 27, Issue. 4 (Spring 1998), pp. 1413-1424.

the negative impact of unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights and

to provide accountability for the source countries and redress for victims.

37. There are, in legal terms and in the context of international law, differences between

the concepts of retorsion, retaliation and reprisals, even if the terminology is unsettled and

sometimes fluctuant.20 In summary, retorsion refers to applying pressure on a target

country, the latter being or not in breach of its international obligations, without the source

country itself suspending any international obligation owed to the target country.21

Retaliation refers to the lex talionis, which demands that a wrongdoer be inflicted with the

same injury as that which he has caused to another. It may thus be used to describe a

suspension by a source country, by way of a unilateral coercive measure, of its international

commitments selectively against the target country to an extent that is proportionate with

the wrongful act of the latter, thus staying within the alleged bounds of legitimacy. Finally,

the concept of reprisal, traditionally used to cover otherwise unlawful action, including

forcible action, taken by way of self-help in response to a breach, is now mostly used to

refer to action taken in time of international armed conflict. In that context, reprisals have

been defined as “coercive measures which would normally be contrary to international law

but which are taken in retaliation by one party to a conflict in order to stop the adversary

from violating international law”.22 unilateral coercive measures can be implemented as an

alternative, or as a prelude, to the use of force. They may be invoked for political motives

or for reasons pertaining to human rights. It is recognized that they are not legitimate if they

pursue an economic objective of the source country or group of countries. International law

will only consider such measures as legitimate if: (a) they are a response to a breach of the

international obligations of the target country; and (b) the breach of such obligations causes

injury on a State or group of States giving them the right to retorsion/retaliation. The notion

of extraterritorial source of injury giving rise to the right to retorsion/retaliation is clear for

political or commercial disputes, but less so for claims of violations of human rights

overseas. Be that as it may, the measures taken by the aggrieved State(s) might have been

qualified as wrongful had it not been for the fact that they are a proportionate response to a

breach of the international obligations by the target country. This legitimacy would also

depend on the source countries having given due notice to the target country to have to

comply with its international obligations. However, the legitimacy of retorsion/ retaliation

may be put in doubt if the negative human rights impact of the unilateral coercive measures

undermines basic human rights or if the measures are pursued indefinitely without any

progress in achieving their proclaimed objective. Thus, human rights law mitigates the

rigors of international law.

38. It may be ultimately that the preferred option to legitimize unilateral coercive

measures is to apply to them the legal regime of countermeasures in the sense of the

International Law Commission Draft Articles on the Responsibility of States for

International Wrongful Acts,23 article 22 of which reads states that the wrongfulness of an

act of a State not in conformity with an international obligation towards another State, as

may be the case for unilateral coercive measures, “is precluded if and to the extent that the

act constitutes a countermeasure taken against the latter State”. However there are

20 See E.S. Colbert, Retaliation in International Law (New York, Kingʼs Crown Press, 1948), pp. 2 and

3, fn. 1.

21 See “Commentaries on the Draft articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful

Acts” (2001) ILC Yearbook, Vol. II, Part Two, p. 128.

22 See S. Oeter, “Methods and Means of Combat”, Handbook of International Humanitarian Law

(Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008), p. 232, No. 476. See also S. Darcy, “Retaliation and

Reprisals”, Oxford Handbook of the Use of Force in International Law (Oxford, Oxford University

Press, 2015), p. 879.

23 See Official Records of the General Assembly, Fifty-fifth Session, Supplement No. 10 (A/56/10).

limitations to the exercise of countermeasures as set out in article 50 of the same text.

Countermeasures would thus be wrongful if they affected obligations for the protection of

fundamental human rights; obligations of a humanitarian character prohibiting reprisals; or

other obligations under peremptory norms of general international law.

39. When applied by international organizational procedure outside that of the Security

Council or by regional organizations, the Draft Articles on the Responsibility of

International Organizations24 become relevant.

40. While human rights law is often considered to be “soft law” as compared with

international law, general comment No. 31 of the International Covenant on Civil and

Political Rights asserts that every State party to the Covenant is “obligated to every other

State party to comply with its undertakings under the treaty” by considering that the

violation of Covenant rights by any State party requires others to call on violators to

“comply with their Covenant obligations”. In this case, human rights law is harsher on

violators of obligations of human rights treaties than international law in relation to other

treaty obligations, as it does not require the State(s) taking unilateral coercive measures to

demonstrate injury from breach by the target country of its obligations under the

International Bill of Human Rights. By these standards, any State party may intervene —

some would say interfere — to call a defaulting State to comply with its obligations, even

if the breach of a human rights provision by the latter causes no injury to the former. This

raises the question as to whether this general comment opens the way for legitimizing the

resort to unilateral coercive measures against States in breach of their human rights

obligations. One might doubt it, since the general comment indicates that this call to

comply, “far from being regarded as an unfriendly act, [is] regarded as a reflection of

legitimate community interest”. Unilateral coercive measures are not friendly acts towards

target countries. They are punitive and are usually resorted to after a breakdown of

diplomatic negotiations. Were this to be a source of legitimacy for unilateral coercive

measures, it would mean that any State could at any time take justice into its own hands and

react through such measures against perceived breaches of human rights by any other State.

It is precisely to avoid this resort of States to self-administered justice, which could easily

threaten world peace, that the Charter of the United Nations was adopted and that

centralized responsibilities in the field of the use of sanctions were devolved on the

Security Council. Article 53 (1) of the Charter stipulates that “no enforcement action shall

be taken under regional arrangements or by regional agencies without authorization of the

Security Council”. The French version of Article 53 refers to “action coercitive”, which

might cover unilateral coercive measures, though it can be argued that this article refers to

resort to military force only. The issue of whether Article 53 precludes recourse to

unilateral coercive measures without Security Council authorization is contentious. It is a

moot point deserving further investigation by jurists.25

24 See Official Records of the General Assembly, Sixty-fourth Session, Supplement No. 10 (A/64/10),

pp. 39-177. See also in this regard Pierre-Emmanuel Dupont, “Countermeasures and Collective

Security: The Case of the European Union Sanctions against Iran”, Journal of Conflict and Security

Law, vol.17 (2012), pp. 301-336.

25 See A. Abass, Regional Organisations and the Development of Collective Security: Beyond Chapter

VIII of the UN Charter (Oxford, Hart Publishing 2004), pp. 46-52. See also U. Villani, “The Security

Council’s Authorization of Enforcement Action by Regional Organizations”, Max Planck Yearbook

of United Nation’s Law (2002), pp. 535 and 538-540.

41. International humanitarian law makes it possible in wartime to lift export bans and

to provide safe channels to satisfy the basic human rights of the civilian population.26 The

Geneva Convention also bans collective reprisals.27

42. Source countries claim that medical equipment, medicines and other items necessary

to meet basic human rights are exempt from restrictive measures applied in peacetime. Yet

for a series of reasons, 85,000 cancer patients in a country targeted by unilateral coercive

measures cannot find locally the required treatment through no fault of the country

concerned. Rights holders in target countries where the negative impact of such measures is

particularly acute could be considered as in a war zone and benefit from the protection of

humanitarian law, which has the advantage of being neutral while the context of unilateral

coercive measures is very heavily charged politically. Independent procurement agencies of

third countries could be involved in providing humanitarian supplies in peacetime for target

countries whose delivery, even though allowed by source countries, may be hampered

indirectly because of a payments freeze or ban on the use of international

telecommunications payment mechanisms. Likewise, unilateral coercive measures of the

kind that prevents access to life-saving drugs are comparable to collective reprisals and

would therefore be banned under humanitarian law.

C. Issues of remedies and redress

43. Finally, on the issue of redress for innocent victims of unilateral coercive measures,

the European Court of Justice has acted on several occasions to annul decisions regarding

such measures taken by the European Union. In very rare cases, it has acted to indemnify

symbolically individual victims. Since close to half of the States Members of the United

Nations have at one time or another been targeted by unilateral coercive measures in the

recent past, the most realistic form of redress would be an apology to innocent victims for

the “collateral damage” to their human rights entitlements which has occurred because of

those measures, together with a commitment to try harder, if not to end the measures, at

least to continue seeking ways to reduce the unintended adverse human rights impact they

have on the civilian population.

44. In view of the shortcomings of adjudicatory procedures at the national and regional

levels and of the real global challenges posed by unilateral coercive measures at the global

level, the issue of an independent mechanism of the United Nations human rights

machinery may at some stage have to be considered to promote accountability and

reparations.

VII. Projected activities of the Special Rapporteur

A. Information gathering

45. In accordance with his mandate, the Special Rapporteur will endeavour to gather

relevant information, including from Governments, non-governmental organizations and

other interested or concerned parties, on the negative impact of unilateral coercive measures

on the enjoyment of human rights.

26 See Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection

of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I), 8 June 1977, Art. 70.

27 See Convention (IV) relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, Geneva, 12

August 1949, Art. 33.

46. The first information needed is data to understand the extent of the problem at hand.

For this purpose, letters have been addressed to all stakeholders, inviting them to provide

the requisite data. The response by the due date of 30 June 2015 has been fragmentary at

best, as has been the case for the participation of “source countries” invited by the Office of

the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) to the two workshops

on unilateral coercive measures held in 201328 and 201429 and for the written responses to

the Secretary-General from the same States in preparation of the analytical report on this

theme, which he submits regularly to the General Assembly.30 The collection of

comprehensive data in this regard is an issue deserving further attention by the mandate-

holder.

B. Study and evaluation of the practice of unilateral coercive measures

and its adverse impact on human rights

47. On the basis of the fragmentary information gathered, the Special Rapporteur will

study the present trends, which all point to an increased resort to unilateral coercive

measures despite the concern expressed by the United Nations about this trend. It bears

mentioning that concern was already expressed by the Commission on Human Rights in its

resolution 1995/45 of 3 March 1995 and regularly reiterated thereafter. The Human Rights

Council itself adopted two decisions and seven resolutions31 expressing inter alia “deep

concern” at the fact that coercive measures continue to be promulgated. Furthermore, the

trend was has been unaffected by the numerous resolutions and outcome documents

adopted by the General Assembly,32 the United Nations Conference on Trade and

Development33 and other major international conferences34 strongly urging States to refrain

from promulgating and applying unilateral coercive measures. The question arises as to

whether the multiplicity of United Nations resolutions adopted on such measures does not

signal an emerging customary law and evolving peremptory norms calling into question

present trends as they express themselves on the ground.

48. Notwithstanding the 16 targets of sanctions currently applied by the Security

Council,35 there are 37 targets for the European Union36 and 3237 for the United States, of

which several overlap with Security Council sanctions, the overwhelming majority of the

European Union and United States targets being the same countries. Of these targets, 7

concern terrorist entities and traffickers in drugs and blood diamonds, transnational

criminal organizations and cybercriminals, which would have been more effective if they

had all been concerted at the United Nations level. Many other countries apply unilateral

28 See Human Rights Council resolution 19/32.

29 See Human Rights Council resolution 24/14.

30 See A/69/97 and A/68/211.

31 Human Rights Council decisions 4/103 and 18/120, and resolutions 6/7, 9/4, 12/22, 15/24, 19/32,

24/14 and 27/21.

32 General Assembly resolutions 69/180, 68/162, 67/170, 66/156, 65/217, 64/170, 63/179, 62/162,

61/170, 60/155, 59/188, 58/171, 57/222, 56/179, 56/148, 55/110, 54/172, 53/141, 52/120, 51/103,

50/96, 48/168, 46/210, 44/215, 42/173, 41/165, 40/185, 39/210 and 38/197.

33 See TD/500/Add.1, para. 25.

34 See, for example, the World Conference on Human Rights, held in Vienna in June 1993.

35 A list of Security Council sanctions regimes in force, along with reference to the Sanctions

Committees set up by the Council to monitor each individual sanctions regime, is available from

www.un.org/sc/committees/.

36 See http://eeas.europa.eu/cfsp/sanctions/docs/measures_en.pdf.

37 See www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/Pages/Programs.aspx.

coercive measures and it would be very helpful if they could provide to the mandate the

requisite information for future reports.

49. To these sanctions and unilateral coercive measures should be added the coercive

measures applied by regional organizations on their own members, as referred to in

paragraph 15 above. The League of Arab States, the African Union, the Organization of

American States and other regional organizations have thus applied coercive measures on

several of their member States. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe

also has few such measures applied against the arms trade in relation with Nagorno-

Karabakh38 and a list of Russian individuals targeted.39

50. Apart from criminal entities, the targets of sanctions are States, mostly developing

countries whose population has often been adversely affected thereby in the enjoyment of

their human rights, and selected individuals within those States. These will constitute the

focus of the work of the Special Rapporteur in recognition of the fact that the few more

developed countries that are the target of unilateral coercive measures have broader options,

including through import substitution or through retaliation, to mitigate the adverse impact

of such measures on the enjoyment of human rights by their population.40

51. The aforementioned totals do not include unilateral coercive measures resorted to by

other individual countries whether or not members of the European Union, including those

harsh measures undermining the most basic rights of the Palestinian people. Taking those

additional individual measures into account, and even excluding criminal entities rightly

targeted, it is likely that there are currently over 75 targets of such measures, but the

number of countries targeted are of course less than half this number because western

source countries tend to have the same target countries in sight. However, in the absence of

centralized data, these figures are at best an estimate. Behind these quantitative data, there

are millions of people who are prevented from enjoying their basic human rights. One

needs to exclude from this count the drug dealers, terrorists or “kleptocrats” who have also

been targeted.

52. The Special Rapporteur will undertake a broad-based fact-finding approach towards

all stakeholders to establish pragmatically the extent of the adverse impact of unilateral

coercive measures, while trying to ascertain the nature of the human rights at jeopardy,

whether civil and political or the right to development or cultural or social rights. He will

then promote a United Nations-wide rule-based response that can prevent, minimize and

redress the adverse impact of unilateral coercive measures on human rights.

C. Drafting of guidelines and formulation of recommendations

53. The elaboration of draft guidelines on ways and means to prevent, minimize and

redress the adverse impact of unilateral coercive measures on human rights will be an

38 See Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Decisions based on the Interim

Report on Nagorno-Karabakh, Committee of Senior Officials, Journal No. 2, Annex 1, Seventh

Committee on Senior Officials meeting, Prague, 27 and 28 February 1992

39 See OSCE, Monaco Declaration and resolutions adopted by the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly at the

twenty-first annual session, 2012, resolution on the rule of law in the Russian Federation: case of

Sergei Magnitsky, available from www.oscepa.org/meetings/annual-sessions/2012-monaco-annual-

session/2012-monaco-final-declaration/1676-07.

40 For example. the Russian Federation has recently decided to halt the import of agricultural goods, and

in particular of pork meat, from the European Union as a result of its sanctions. See

http://epthinktank.eu/2014/04/23/russias-import-ban-on-eu-pork-meat/. See also

www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2014/536291/IPOL_BRI(2014)536291_EN.pdf.

important task for the mandate. There is in this regard a difference in views among Member

States as to whether source countries should simply put “an immediate end to unilateral

coercive measures”, which is the view of target countries and developing countries at large,

or whether such measures should remain a key component of foreign policy that at best

requires a small adjustment to mitigate their adverse human rights impacts, which is the

view of most source countries. This difference in views finds expression in the polarized

voting pattern that has prevailed so far in the adoption of resolutions pertaining to unilateral

coercive measures. For developing States, adopting guidelines should not signify a

recognition of the legitimacy of such measures as a tool of foreign policy, a position they

do not countenance. For the source countries, mostly advanced States, of which one group

has indeed adopted exhaustive guidelines, the issue might signify no more than sharing

such guidelines with others.

54. The Special Rapporteur will seek to promote, through appropriate recommendations,

a consensual approach in this regard, giving priority to pragmatic options that can

effectively prevent, minimize and redress the adverse impact of unilateral coercive

measures on vulnerable groups on the ground.

D. Review and evaluation of mechanisms for assessment and redress

55. The Special Rapporteur will also review existing independent mechanisms set up to

assess the adverse impacts of unilateral coercive measures and adjudicatory procedures to

permit redress or reparations of aggrieved parties, and will seek to identify best practices

and next practices, having in view the necessity to promote the accountability of source

countries and the credibility of impact assessment in target countries.

56. In order to mirror in the approach to unilateral coercive measures, progress achieved

in respect of United Nations sanctions policy, the Special Rapporteur will review ongoing

work in this regard by the High-level Review of United Nations Sanctions and the Inter-

agency Working Group on United Nations Sanctions, as well as the lessons to be learned

from the Interlaken Process on Financial Sanctions,41 the Bonn/Berlin Process on the

Design and Implementation of Arms Embargoes and Travel and Aviation related

Sanctions,42 the Stockholm Process on Making Targeted Sanctions Effective- Guidelines

for the Implementation of United Nations Policy Options43 and the Greek Process on

Enhancing the Implementation of United Nations Sanctions.44

41 Swiss Confederation, United Nations Secretariat and Watson Institute for Strategic Studies at Brown

University, “Targeted Financial Sanctions: A Manual for Design and Implementation – Contributions

from the Interlaken Process” (Providence, Rhode Island, Thomas J. Watson Institute for International

Studies, 2001). Available from www.eda.admin.ch/content/dam/eda/en/documents/home/Handbuch-

zu-gezielten-Finanzsanktionen_EN.pdf.

42 M. Brzoska (ed.), “Design and Implementation of the Arms Embargoes and Travel and Aviation

Related Sanctions: Results of the ʻBonn-Berlin Processʼ” (Bonn, Bonn International Centre for

Conversion, 2001). Available from www.watsoninstitute.org/tfs/CD/booklet_sanctions.pdf.

43 P. Wallensteen, C. Staibano and M. Eriksson (eds.), Making Targeted Sanctions Effective: Guidelines

for the Implementation of United Nations Policy Options (Uppsala, Uppsala University Department of

Peace and Conflict Research, 2003). Available from www.smallarmssurvey.org/fileadmin/docs/L-

External-publications/2003/2003%20Uppsala%20Targeted%20sanctions%20effective.pdf.

44 S/2007/734, annex.

E. Contribution to strengthen the capacity of the Office of the United

Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to provide technical

assistance and advisory services to affected countries

57. Pursuant to his mandate, the Special Rapporteur will contribute to backstopping the

capacity of OHCHR to provide affected countries with technical assistance and advisory

services. Consultations have been initiated with OHCHR to determine the modalities of the

special procedure’s involvement in this important area

58. The mandate-holder will investigate the possibility and acceptability of including

reporting on unilateral coercive measures and on their human rights impact as part of the

universal periodic review process and to organize a cross-cutting mainstreaming session of

the Human Rights Council on this theme

VIII. Conclusion

59. Only multilateral sanctions approved by the Security Council comply with the

letter and spirit of the Charter of the United Nations, which is the bond between all

States Members of the United Nations. The political reality, however, has departed

from the ideals of the founding fathers based on a vision of the unity of purpose of the

victors of the Second World War. Thus, it soon became obvious that the veto powers

devolved to the five permanent members of the Security Council would, on occasion,

prevent it from adopting sanctions when these were necessary if only to protect

innocent populations from abuse of their human rights, or the procedure in the

Council for adopting sanctions was too lengthy while the need to resort to coercive

measures brooked no delay. It was to be expected that unilateral coercive measures

would be adopted to remedy such deficiencies.

60. However, the question remains as to whether such measures would still be

legitimate if the Security Council had already taken action and adopted appropriate

sanctions in good time. This is open to debate, but there are strong legal arguments

that support a negative answer. It has been argued that:

From the moment when the Council occupies itself with the adoption of

mandatory sanctions, Member States transform into agents for the execution of

these sanctions, their duty being to implement them in good faith without

undermining their effective application. For States not individually injured,

this implies an obligation to suspend measures already adopted at the

individual level if they are different or incompatible with the measures decided

by the Council, or in any case, to modify them in order to harmonize them with

United Nations sanctions. A fortiori, the States in question should not adopt

collective countermeasures after the pronouncement of mandatory sanctions

but only measures that are necessary and sufficient for the execution of those

mandatory sanctions. In short, unless the Council invites States to go further

than its own measures — a rare event in practice — the triggering of Chapter

VII ends the power of States not individually injured to react as they please at

the individual level.45

45 L.A. Sicilianos, “Countermeasures in Response to Grave Violations of Obligations Owed to the

International Community”, The Law of International Responsibility (Oxford, Oxford University

Press, 2010), p. 1142.

61. The debate as to whether autonomous policies of retorsion/retaliation or of

countermeasures by States or groups of States warrant unilateral coercive measures

in such circumstances and whether or not they comply with international law,

customary law and peremptory norms of behaviour, is essentially a political debate

between source and target countries. The pragmatic way out of the resulting

conundrum has been to focus on the efficiency and effectiveness of such measures and

on their human rights impact. The argument goes that if measures achieve their

objectives rapidly and if these objectives are viewed as desirable by the international

community, they may be considered as legitimate. However, this legitimacy is

undermined if the measures have caused, by design or by default, egregious violations

of basic human rights.

62. The search for international legitimacy has therefore led to a flurry of

initiatives to focus on universally accepted targets, to be monitored closely and

adjusted as warranted by evolving circumstances. The aims of the measures targeting

countries are to be limited to changing the target country’s behaviour if, and only if, it

is in breach of an international treaty, covenant or agreement or to signal the

international community’s disapproval of the targeted country’s behaviour. The

measures should be time-bound and in view of the modesty of the outcome of

unilateral coercive measures in achieving their goals so far,46 should be combined with

a series of other complementary efforts including incentives and negotiations to

increase chances of success.

63. But if the human rights impact of unilateral coercive measures on the most

vulnerable groups is egregious and if there is no perceptible progress towards the

achievement of the proclaimed target, the legitimacy of these measures will be called

into question even if a good legal case can be made in support of the action.

64. Resort to unilateral coercive measures in this case is not conditional on

demonstration of direct injury by the source-State or group of States. Keeping in

mind as a guiding thread the fate of rights holders in target countries who should be

protected both by their authorities and by the source countries, it is suggested that the

focus of investigations be pragmatic, i.e. to get a full picture of the unilateral coercive

measures under implementation, to devise parameters to assess their human rights

impact while distinguishing correlation from causation, to identify best institutional

practice in source countries and devise United Nations guidelines applicable to such

measures to correct and redress their negative impact. This conceptual approach will

have to be confronted with case studies to ensure, at all times, a reality check for

ongoing research in this regard.

46 The rate of success of unilateral coercive measures in the pre-globalization era was 34 per cent and

has gone down since then as South-South cooperation mainly with new world economic powerhouses

has reduced the constraints of embargoes coming from advanced industrialized countries. See Heather

Chingono, Medial Hove and Steven James Danda “Sanctions Effectiveness in a Globalized World”,

International Journal of Humanities and Social Studies, Vol.3, No. 21, December 2013. The success

rate of unilateral coercive measures is, however, improved when their impact is compounded not only

by incentives but also by supportive international economic trends. Thus unilateral coercive measures

of 2012 imposing an embargo on Iranian oil exports added to the drop in oil prices in 2015 enhanced

pressure to seal the nuclear deal between the five plus one group and Iran (Islamic Republic of).

These developments with respect to Iran (Islamic Republic of) and those relating to the policy to end

the comprehensive unilateral coercive measures against Cuba may be the harbingers of a new future

trend to seek solutions to international conflicts of interest through negotiation and diplomacy rather

than through economic or military violence.