NOURNEWS- A side meeting hosted by Venezuela was held on the sidelines of the 78th session of the United Nations General Assembly on 21 September 2023 at the United Nations headquarters in New York.
In this meeting with the theme “Presentation of the Geopolitical Map of Sanctions”, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Venezuela, his deputies, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nicaragua, the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Cuba, the Head of the Russian and Eritrean Missions, the Deputy Mission of Belarus, the Political Coordinator of the Chinese Mission, the Assistant Minister and the Director General America's department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Iran have participated and gave a speech in this meeting.
In a part of the meeting, Ms. Alena Douhan, the “Special Rapporteur of the Human Rights Council regarding the negative impact of unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights” attended the meeting virtually and gave a speech.
The participants in the meeting condemned the illegal acts of unilateral coercive measures by the US and other countries and introduced the sanctions as an economic war, a lever of pressure against the targeted countries, a weapon of mass destruction, a crime against humanity and a violation of the United Nations Charter, furthermore the participants stated that unilateral sanctions violate the human rights of the people of a nation, rights such as the right to development to the right to health and the right to life, etc.
The participants emphasized that unilateral coercive measures, secondary sanctions and over-compliance of sanctions cause the countries' efforts to achieve sustainable development goals to be hindered, and they affect many areas such as health and medicine and even transportation, furthermore the sanctions have a negative impact on access to technology and education.
The attendees of this meeting emphasized on the need for unconditional and immediate end of the imposed sanctions and furthermore, emphasized on the importance of documenting the negative effects of the sanctions on various aspects of social, economic, cultural rights, etc. Making the imposing countries accountable was also one of the topics mentioned in this meeting.
The Deputy Foreign Minister of Cuba emphasized on the illegality of sanctions and added that more than 30 countries are under sanctions and studies and knowledge in this area and the negative effects of sanctions on the affected countries should be systematically collected.
The Russian ambassador announced that during the past years, a global level decision has been taken to prohibit the use of nuclear weapons at the global level, a similar decision must be taken regarding the sanctions and the use of illegal sanctions must be prohibited at global level.
He declared that more pressure should be applied on the Secretary General of the United Nations to monitor the negative impact of sanctions. Russia is under 15,000 sanctions, but at the national level, it has decided not to protest against this issue in the United Nations.
The Iranian assistant foreign minister and general-director of the ministry's America department, on behalf of Iran, while appreciating Venezuela's initiative in preparing a geopolitical map of sanctions and the actions of the Special Rapporteur on Sanctions in launching the Sanctions Research Platform, condemned the use of sanctions as an inhumane and illegal tool in line with the political interests of some countries and highlighted the obvious destructive effect of sanctions in increasing the number of deaths caused by targeting health systems, food security and the enjoyment of other social and economic human rights in the targeted countries.
Kameli expressed concern that the issue of sanctions was ignored in the negotiations of the three political statements in the field of health, the Summit of the Future and the interstate dialogues in the field of human rights of the elderly.
Mrs. Douhan, UN’s special rapporteur on sanctions, gave explanations regarding the negative effects of sanctions in many areas and about the launch of the “Sanctions Research Platform”.
She emphasized on the importance of increasing the responsibility of those who are special procedures that work on sanctions and stated that limiting the impact of sanctions on humanitarian issues is not a correct definition of the impact of sanctions. Sanctions are being imposed on countries based on their nationality and place of residence, which has a disproportionate effect on the disabled, immigrants, women, children, etc., and currently there is no accountability mechanism in this regard. It is necessary to highlight the challenges related to unilateral coercive measures to achieve the goals of sustainable development not only by governments, but by all institutions related to the United Nations within the framework of their responsibilities.
In this meeting, the geopolitical map of sanctions prepared by Venezuela was introduced by the ambassador of this country and the purpose of its creation was to launch a virtual and interactive platform that collects the results of official, academic or independent research.
According to the mentioned map, after Russia, Iran is the second most sanctioned country in the world.
NOURNEWS