UN-Geneva Forum addresses referral of Venezuela’s lawsuit against the US before the ICC
In the framework of the 43rd Session of the Human Rights Council of the United Nations Organization, in Geneva, Switzerland, and as part of the agenda for the defense of human rights in Venezuela, the forum on “Referral of Venezuela to the International Criminal Court on Unilateral Coercive Measures imposed by the United States government” was held this Wednesday. The panel of experts was presented by the People’s Power Minister for Foreign Relations, Jorge Arreaza.
“We are proud of ourselves because we have contained the consequences of the more than 300 unilateral coercive measures against Venezuela. In the last six years, these have been contained thanks to the social protection system of Venezuela. If we did not have a Revolution with an emphasis on the protection of the most vulnerable, the effects of these measures would have been four or five times worse”, said the Foreign Minister.
During his speech, Antonio Remiro Brotóns, a member of the Institute of International Law and the Permanent Court of Arbitration, said that the US government has begun a process of laundering for unilateral coercive measures, which occurs with terminological legitimation, when theese unilateral coercive measures are not called by name, but by “sanctions”, even when a State is not empowered to sanction another.
Alfred de Zayas also participated in this forum, who was an independent expert of the UN Human Rights Council for the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order. For his part, he noted that Article 95 of the Charter of the United Nations gives the General Assembly the possibility of raising a legal question to the International Court of Justice for an advisory opinion on the illegality of unilateral coercive measures, and the civil-criminal responsibility of those States that have imposed them.
Finally, through the Skype platform, the Canadian academic, specialized in international criminal and human rights law, William Schabas, explained that in the future the jurisdiction of the Court will be increasingly important in the face of the phenomenon of cybercrime and attack, when talking about the frontal aggression from one State to another as a crime against humanity, referring to the cyber attacks suffered by Venezuela in 2019 that affected the electricity supply to the population.