The illegality and humanitarian failure of unilateral coercive measures

On April 9th and 10th, 2026, the Palais des Nations in Geneva hosted an international conference titled “Humanitarian Action, Remedy and Responsibility in unilateral sanctions environment”. Organized under the auspices of the United Nations Special Procedures and the Group of Friends for the Defense of the UN Charter, this meeting falls within the mandate of the UN Special Rapporteur on unilateral coercive measures, Ms. Alena Douhan. This mandate, established by the Human Rights Council, aims to document the impact of unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights. In the context of growing polarization, marked by the intensification of an imperialist offensive that employs these coercive tools, the event served as a platform to present guiding principles aimed at protecting humanitarian action and establishing accountability mechanisms in response to the collateral damage caused by sanctions.

I. A Tool of Coercion Challenging International Legitimacy
The issue with this conference lies in the clash between two opposing visions of international law. Unilateral coercive measures (UCMs) are at the heart of a North-South divide within the United Nations.

For the targeted countries, these measures constitute an insurmountable obstacle to development and a violation of the principles of sovereignty. The President of the Republic of Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel, thus denounced via video a system of “collective punishment, deliberately harming entire populations through economic warfare.” This analysis is shared by many countries of the Global South, which highlight the gap between political intentions and social realities. Brazil’s Ambassador, Tovar Da Silva Nunes, emphasized the need to rethink these tools, warning that sanctions can cause damage “comparable to major global crises and significantly affect human rights.” Similarly, Zimbabwe’s Representative, Ever Mlilo, noted that these measures are designed to “disrupt economies and exert pressure to bring political change,” at the expense of infrastructure and employment.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Dmitry Lyubinsky reaffirmed a position shared by many states: only sanctions imposed by the UN Security Council under Chapter VII of the Charter has international legitimacy. Outside this multilateral framework, unilateral interventions are perceived not as legal measures, but as tools of political coercion that violate the principle of sovereign equality of states. Special Rapporteur Alena Douhan further emphasizes that the legality of these measures is widely contested since they aim to subordinate the exercise of another state’s sovereign rights.

This illegality extends to the practice of secondary sanctions and extraterritoriality, which force third-party entities to comply with foreign national policies. As analyzed by Pouria Askary, a professor at Allameh Tabataba’i University, the application of laws beyond national borders constitutes a legal exception that must meet strict conditions, which are often not met by current sanctions regimes.

In contrast, Western powers maintain a line of defense based on the precision and necessity of these interventions. The European Union, for example, rejects the term “unilateral coercive measures,” asserting that its provisions are “targeted, temporary, and fully in accordance with international law,” intended solely to address serious human rights violations or threats to peace. This divergence of views highlights the North-South divide: where some see a legitimate instrument of diplomatic pressure, others denounce a drift toward what Venezuelan Ambassador Alexander Yánez Deleuze describes as a tool of “destabilization and economic warfare.” It is worth recalling that the sanctions regimes imposed by the United States and the EU caused the deaths of 38 million people between 1971 and 2021, equivalent to 1,500 deaths per day.¹ This article explores the roots of this divide and the systemic consequences of the growing use of financial coercion at the expense of the multilateral framework of the United Nations Charter.

II. The Failure of Stated Objectives
The analysis of the impacts of unilateral coercive measures reveals a profound disconnect between the stated objectives of the states imposing sanctions and the realities observed on the ground. The case study on Syria presented at the conference demonstrates that sanctions have not produced the expected political results. On the contrary, they have perpetuated complex structural crises and affected the most vulnerable segments of the population.

The ineffectiveness of these measures masks a strategy aimed at breaking the social contract between a government and its people. The cost of this policy results in massive suffering and violations of fundamental human rights.

By using deprivation as a bargaining chip, the powers imposing sanctions turn basic needs, such as access to healthcare, energy, and food, into political bargaining chips. It is also worth highlighting the existence of a clear double standard in international practice. For example, Western states impose no sanctions against Israel for the crime of genocide, nor against the United States of America for its wars of aggression in Iran. This asymmetry in the application of coercive measures highlights political manipulation.

III. The Humanitarian Impact: A Systemic Crisis Exacerbated by Over-Compliance in the Banking Sector
The consequences of unilateral coercive measures on the ground extend far beyond trade restrictions, generating a systemic collapse of essential public services. In Venezuela, the organization FUNDALATIN has provided accounts illustrating the deterioration of hospital infrastructure, where delays in treatment and the inability to perform transplants have led to preventable deaths. In Cuba, the United Nations Resident Coordinator, Francisco Pichón, emphasized that these measures affect every aspect of daily life, from education to energy security, creating chronic insecurity for millions of citizens. This erosion of basic services is not an unforeseen side effect, but rather a profound breakdown in the State’s capacity to guarantee the fundamental rights of its population.

A major breaking point lies in the ineffectiveness of humanitarian exemptions, which experts Reza Majdzadeh and Joy Gordon describe as purely “theoretical.” Although sanctions regimes officially provide for licenses for essential goods, the operational reality is hampered by the phenomenon of “over-compliance” by banks. Fearing secondary sanctions and astronomical fines imposed by U.S. authorities and international financial institutions in particular, banks engage in systematic “de-risking.” They refuse to process any transaction linked to a sanctioned country, even when it involves lawful purchases of medicines or medical supplies. This financial blockade turns legal exemptions into bureaucratic dead ends, depriving populations of vital access to healthcare.

This deterioration disproportionately affects women and girls, as documented by Reem Alsalem, Special Rapporteur on violence against women. The collapse of public health and social protection services shifts the burden of care to the domestic sphere, increasing women’s unpaid workload and limiting their access to economic autonomy. By exacerbating pre-existing gender inequalities, sanctions trap women in a state of heightened vulnerability to poverty and violence. This process transforms an already precarious economic situation into a lasting humanitarian catastrophe, where the human cost is borne by those furthest removed from political decision-making circles.

IV. The Financial and Technological Dimension: The New Frontiers of Coercion
Contemporary developments in unilateral coercive measures mark a shift from simple trade restrictions toward structural control over intangible flows. Lyla Latif, a Nairobi-based lawyer, has highlighted the emergence of “technological coercion,” which is particularly evident in the semiconductor industry. By using controls on exports of high-tech chips and artificial intelligence as a diplomatic lever, certain powers impose deterrence frameworks that constrain not only their adversaries, but also their allies and third countries. For countries in the Global South, particularly in Africa, this technological dependence creates a risk of digital lock-in, where access to the technological knowledge necessary for their development is contingent upon alignment with the strategic positions of dominant technology suppliers.

This technological hold is coupled with a financial architecture that Steven Dean describes as a “racialized fiscal governance system,” an analysis corroborated and expanded upon by the United Nations Independent Expert on the Effects of Debt, Attiya Waris. Beyond the OECD, select bodies operating outside the UN framework, such as the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) or the European Council, are establishing blacklisting and gray-listing mechanisms that disproportionately target developing economies and island nations, while sparing the financial hubs of the Global North. This tightened financial surveillance system forces vulnerable countries to navigate an environment of constant suspicion.
The reputational risk and the threat of financial sanctions are enormous: the average fine for non-compliance imposed on banking institutions amounted to more than $145 million in 2019. This is driving the international banking sector toward systematic “over-compliance.” Sanctions are no longer merely barriers at borders; they have become a weapon for exclusion from international payment systems. These measures lead to de facto dollarization, hyperinflation, and the collapse of local industries that rely on vital dollar-denominated imports. This complex mechanism illustrates how tools of financial domination limit the economic sovereignty of countries in the Global South, trapping them in a state of permanent vulnerability that hinders any self-determined development.

V. Prospects and Remedies: Toward International Accountability and Remedial Mechanisms
The persistence of unilateral coercive measures calls for a structural response from the international community to restore the rule of law. One of the most significant proposals, put forward by Alfred de Zaya, former UN Independent Expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order, is for the United Nations General Assembly to request an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the legal consequences of unilateral coercive measures. Such a step would clarify the obligations of States and confirm whether these measures, by their nature and impact, violate the peremptory norms of international law. At the same time, it is imperative to strengthen the role of UN treaty bodies so that they systematically incorporate an analysis of the impacts of sanctions into their review of national human rights reports.

The effectiveness of these remedies also depends on rigorous documentation. As Michael Strauss (Professor of International Law and International Relations at the Center for Diplomatic and Strategic Studies, CEDS) has pointed out, the current lack of monitoring and impact assessment mechanisms constitutes a major obstacle to justice. The creation of a permanent observatory would make it possible to independently document human rights violations and shed light on the causal links between sanctions and humanitarian distress. This transparency is an essential prerequisite for advocating for a legally binding international instrument that would precisely define permissible sanctions and prohibit their most abusive forms. Such an instrument should be accompanied by the establishment of compensation funds for victims in order to hold states imposing sanctions accountable before judicial bodies.

Finally, given the exploitation of hegemonic financial networks, the emergence of alternative financial systems, particularly those led by the BRICS countries, appears to be a pragmatic response. The development of independent payment systems and the diversification of currencies aim to reduce the vulnerability of states to the risk of financial exclusion. These initiatives are not merely tools for economic bypass, but the building blocks of a new multipolar order in which participation in global trade would no longer be subject to a unilateral veto.

Conclusion: Restoring Multilateralism and Human Dignity
The conference issued an unequivocal call for international solidarity to bring the era of unilateral coercion to a definitive close. The discussions highlighted an indisputable reality: respect for human dignity and the right to life is fundamentally incompatible with the maintenance of widespread sanctions regimes. By indiscriminately targeting countries’ vital infrastructure, these measures do not constitute peaceful alternatives to conflict, but rather extensions of war by economic means, whose first victims are systematically the most vulnerable.

International peace and security cannot be guaranteed by the imposition of force in the service of particular interests, but rather through the engagement of popular movements and respect for the sovereignty of states. It is imperative to return to genuine multilateral cooperation, as defined by the United Nations Charter, and to rid international relations of those tools of pressure that exploit fundamental human needs as political leverage. The protection of civilian populations must cease to be a secondary consideration and once again become the absolute obligation that guides the actions of the international community.

The CETIM

1 Francisco R. Rodríguez, « The Human Consequences of Economic Sanctions », CEPR (may 2023).