The Vice-minister for Multilateral Issues of the People’s Power Ministry for Foreign Relations, Alexander Yánez, participated this Wednesday in the telematic discussion “Unilateral coercive measures against Venezuela and International Law”, in which he succinctly explained the illegal nature of the misnamed sanctions, their impact on society, the economy and the human rights of peoples who are victims of this genocidal and imperial policy.
The activity organized by the National School of Magistracy (ENM), served, among other things, to contextualize and explain the basic concepts of unilateral coercive measures.
Along these lines, Vice-minister Yánez shared the concept of the UN Special Rapporteur Alena Douhan on the negative impact of unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights, who clarifies that unilateral coercive measures are nothing more than:
“Measures applied by States, groups of States or regional organizations without the authorization or exceeding the authorization of the Security Council (applied) to States, persons or entities in order to change a policy or behavior of the States against which they go directly or indirectly.”
He explained that unilateral coercive measures can be general or selective. The first:
“Are measures aimed at the whole economy or financial system of a country. They tend to be indiscriminate and, therefore, to have a negative impact on the human rights of the poorest and most vulnerable sectors of society in the country targeted by the measures. Its effectiveness is measured in light of its ability to impose far-reaching policy changes or create enough economic difficulties in the destination country to incite the population to rebel against its political leadership.”
For their part, “selective coercive measures can be targeted at certain sectors of a country’s economic activity or be more comprehensive but specific to a limited part of the territory. Their effect may be to destabilize a certain sector of production or a certain geographic area.”
During the discussion, the diplomatic representative exposed the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), adopted by world leaders to eradicate poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all, and how these are violated in Venezuela by applying unilateral coercive measures by the United States.
The Vice-minister for Multilateral Issues ended the virtual meeting with brief reflections on the rigorous referral and complaint that Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza delivered to the International Criminal Court (ICC) last February, through which the initiation of an investigation on the crimes against humanity that derive from the illegal unilateral coercive measures imposed by the United States government against the people and the Venezuelan State as a whole was formally requested.
He added that the world is not only going through the worst biological crisis due to COVID-19, but also the lack of humanity with the insistent application of unilateral coercive measures.