“Sooner than later, Venezuela will defeat with the law what the United States intends to impose by force”, the People’s Power Minister for Foreign Relations, Jorge Arreaza, said on his Twitter account this Friday, informing that the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela sued the North American nation before the World Trade Organization (WTO) for the imposition of unilateral coercive measures, which violate international trade rules.
The fundamentals of the Venezuelan State are mainly focused on restrictive and discriminatory measures to trade in goods and services that violate WTO principles, such as national and most-favored-nation treatment.
Venezuela demandó hoy a EEUU ante la #OMC por la imposición de medidas coercitivas unilaterales, que incumplen las normas internacionales de comercio. Más temprano que tarde #Venezuela🇻🇪 derrotará con el Derecho lo que EEUU🇺🇸 pretende imponer por la fuerza. pic.twitter.com/Qbd5oxyYZw
— Jorge Arreaza M (@jaarreaza) March 26, 2021
This new complaint is added to the referral that it introduced before the International Criminal Court (ICC) on February 13, 2020, under the allegation that the unilateral coercive measures that US Government authorities have been systematically radicalizing against the Venezuelan people, since 2014, constitute crimes against humanity, according to the Rome Statute.
On March 10 of this year, the Venezuelan Government submitted new evidence to the ICC Prosecutor’s Office to support its claim, such as the preliminary report of the UN Rapporteur, Alena Douhan, and the report of the Government Accountability Office (GAO) of the US, which recognizes that the sanctions are to limit the sources of income of the South American country.
The report of the GAO, the agency of the legislative power that oversees the federal government of the United States, dated February 8, 2021, admits the subjective elements of the crime against humanity and recognizes the negative impact generated by the unilateral coercive measures on the economy of Venezuela and the human rights of its people.
Different instances of the United Nations (UN), such as the General Assembly, the Human Rights Council and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, have spoken out in rejection of the imposition of these illegal measures and have urged its immediate suspension in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Consejo de DDHH de la ONU aprueba resolución sobre impacto negativo de medidas coercitivas unilaterales
At the conclusion of its 46th period of sessions on March 23, the UN Human Rights Council approved a resolution on the negative repercussions of unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights, in which it condemned their extraterritorial nature and urged its elimination, among other reasons, because it creates obstacles to trade relations between States, undermining the right of individuals and people to development.