U.S. UNILATERAL SANCTIONS
AGAINST IRAN
M. Javad Zarif
Saeid Mirzaee[1]
Economic sanctions have been one of
the primary enforcement mechanisms of the United Nations collective security
machinery. At the same time, they have
been applied much more often unilaterally or multilaterally as instruments of
foreign policy. Although recently the
use of economic sanctions by the Security Council has been on the rise, in the
past the Council was reluctant to impose sanctions, and thus most cases of
international sanctions during the Cold War were unilateral or multilateral as
opposed to universal. In fact, during
the Cold war, the Council imposed sanctions only against Rhodesia in 1966 and
South Africa in 1977. However, the number of sanctions imposed by the Security
Council within five years since 1990 amounts to more than four times of the
total of the preceding 45 years. Since
1990, Iraq, Yugoslavia, Somalia, Angola, Libya, Rwanda, Liberia, Haiti and
Sudan became targets of international sanctions.
1. General Observations on Economic Sanctions
Proponents of economic sanctions
have argued that “the greatest advantage of economic sanctions is that on the
one hand they can be very potent, while on the other hand, they do not involve
the resort to force and violence.”[2] Thus, the first and most obvious issue that
needs to be addressed is the utility of economic sanctions in achieving desired
outcome.
Sanctions are defined as measures
taken by members of a community to prevent and deter violations of the norms of
that community and encourage compliance. Johan Galtung has defined
international sanctions as:
actions initiated by one or more international actors against one or
more others with either or both of the two purposes: to punish the receiver by
depriving them of some values and/or to make the receiver comply with certain
norms the sender deems important.[3]
It is important to note that
although sanctions contain an element of punishment against violations of
international law, they are not designed to merely inflict hardship upon the
population of the target state, but in fact to create changes in political
behavior. Some observers have gone further and argued that the most important
function of sanctions is deterrence.[4]
In essence, success or failure of
any given sanction regime must be assessed not on the basis of its economic
impact on the target state, but its ability in bringing about the desired
political reaction from the target state.
In most cases, international economic sanctions have had considerable
economic impact but much less significant political success.[5] Studies on the ability of sanctions to affect
a behavioral change in former Rhodesia, for instance, did not reach any
conclusive finding on their effectiveness.[6] More recent cases of
carefully monitored and strictly enforced universal sanctions have not faired
much better.
Moreover, the negative humanitarian
effects of international sanctions on the most vulnerable segments of the
population of the target states have always been one of the primary concerns of
the international community.[7] The logic of a sanction regime is simple. It is assumed that imposition of economic
sanctions would make life sufficiently difficult in the target state so that
the public would impose pressure on the state to change course and react in the
desired manner. But this logic is
founded on a culture-specific assumption of rationality[8] coupled with an
unrealistic perception of relation
between economic conditions and political behavior.
The effects of sanctions on free
trade and the right to development as well as their devastating consequences
for the neighbors of the target state represent rather fundamental issues that
require sober assessment. Most importantly, the alarming fact that sanctions,
even those imposed by the United Nations, have been politically motivated,
selectively applied and drastically manipulated is no more than an open secret.
An examination of the record of the Security Council and its decisions on
various cases involving threats to peace or acts of aggression would clearly
illustrate the primacy of extraneous political and even economic
considerations. Moreover, the ambiguity of the objectives of sanctions in the
more recent cases of the Council’s resort to this mechanism may indicate a
political desire to introduce extraneous considerations. In the supplement to An Agenda for Peace, the
Secretary-General of the United Nations complained that:
The objectives for which specific sanctions regimes were imposed have
not always been clearly defined. Indeed,
they sometimes seem to change over time.
This combination of imprecision and mutability makes it difficult for
the Security Council to agree on when the objectives can be considered to have
been achieved and sanctions can be lifted. While recognizing that the Council
is a political body rather than a judicial organ, it is of great importance
that when it decides to impose sanctions it should at the same time define
objective criteria for determining that their purpose has been achieved. If general support for the use of sanctions
as an effective instrument is to be maintained, care should be taken to avoid
giving the impression that the purpose of imposing sanctions is punishment
rather than the modification of political behavior or that criteria are being
changed in order to serve purposes other than those which motivated the
original decision to impose sanctions.
These issues need to be studied
seriously, particularly by the United Nations whose Charter provides for
imposition of sanctions, within the framework of the responsibility to maintain
international peace and security, as one of the last resorts in order to avoid
recourse to forcible coercive measures under Article 42. Otherwise, the price will be further erosion
of legitimacy and effectiveness of this potentially valuable United Nations
enforcement machinery.
2.
Unilateral Sanctions
The problems of multilateral
sanctions are multiplied manifold when addressing unilateral sanctions. They are in fact instruments of foreign
policy, rhetoric to the contrary notwithstanding. They suffer from the previously mentioned
shortcomings of international sanctions, while lacking any legitimacy or
internationally accepted constitutional foundation.
The United States imposes more
unilateral sanctions than any other state.
According to Congressional Research Service, the United States defines
economic sanctions as nonmilitary actions that adversely affect the flow of
goods, services, or financial assets to a specific foreign country in order to
penalize or coerce a country for political purposes or to express U.S.
displeasure with that country's actions. The United States imposed economic
sanction against 79 foreign countries between 1979 and 1992.[9]
The unilateral U.S. sanctions have
recently taken a new dimension through an emerging tendency shown by the United
States Congress to impose sanctions on third parties, and attempt to broaden
the scope of its jurisdiction beyond U.S. borders. Recent sanctions against third parties
dealing with Cuba, Libya and Iran are the most prominent in this category.
3. U.S. Unilateral Sanctions Against Iran
On August 4, 1996, the President of
the United States signed the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act of 1996 imposing
sanctions against foreign companies that make investments which contribute to
Iran's ability to develop its petroleum resources.
This was the latest in a series of
formal sanctions imposed against the Islamic Republic of Iran in the 1980s and
90s. In fact, the United States Government re-imposed most of the sanctions
that had been revoked under Paragraph 10 of the Algerian Declaration, which was
signed between the two countries in 1981 ending the hostage crisis. These sanctions include:
a. At
the height of Iraqi aggression against Iran, from 1983 onwards, the United
States imposed a unilateral embargo, called "Operation Staunch",
which was designed to prevent arms or dual use equipment from anywhere in the
world to reach Iran. This was designed
to help Iraq, towards which the U.S. had “tilted” during the 1980s.
b. On
October 29, 1987, President Reagan, by Executive Order 12613, embargoed imports
from Iran and banned exports of 14 types of products with potential military
use.[10]
c. Exports
of certain chemical materials to Iran were banned by executive orders of March
1984 and July 1987.[11]
d. The
Iran-Iraq Arms Non-Proliferation Act, passed as an amendment to the FY 1993
Defense Authorization Act
[12], provides for
"sanctions against persons or countries that supply Iran any goods or
technology that could contribute to its conventional weapons programs and
requires that license applications to export military useful equipment be
denied."[13]
e. The
FY 1993 Foreign Operations Appropriations Bill bars assistance to Russia unless
the President enters into serious discussions with Russia to reduce exports of
sophisticated conventional weapons to Iran.[14]
f. International
financial institutions’ ability to lend to Iran was seriously limited through
provisions in various Congressional Acts for FY 1994 and FY 1995. The FY 1994
Foreign Aid Appropriation Act cut the Administration's request for the U.S.
contribution to the World Bank by the amount the Bank loaned Iran in 1993.[15]
g. On
March 15, 1995, President Clinton issued an executive order banning U.S. trade
and investment in Iran, including the trading of Iranian oil overseas by U.S.
companies and their foreign affiliates.[16]
Before and since the entry into
force of the latest sanctions, also known as D’Amato law named after its
original sponsor, the U.S. has been pursuing diplomatic initiatives to persuade
other countries to adopt similar measures against Iran. At the July 1993 Tokyo
Summit of the Group of Seven and its follow-up meetings, the United States
asked for cooperation of other industrialized countries in halting sales of
military useful technology to Iran.[17] It has further approached,
on several occasions, a number of states including members of the European
Union and Japan, asking those states to impose economic and trade sanctions
against the Islamic Republic of Iran.
In March 1996, letters were sent by
Senator D’Amato to the French oil companies ELF and Total imposing pressure on
them to halt their actual or potential involvement in oil and gas projects in
Iran. This follows the dispatch of similar letters to a number of other
companies and institutions, including Australia's BHP, Japan's JGC, the German
Government and the United Nations.[18]
4.
The Impermissibility of Unilateral Sanctions in International Law: U.S.
Sanctions Against Iran
Unilateral sanctions have at best
dubious legal character, while the imposition of unilateral primary and
secondary sanctions by the United States against Iran clearly constitute violations
of international law.
4.1.
Unilateral Sanctions Are Impermissible Under International Law
The international Community has
empowered only the United Nations to adopt coercive economic measures in specific situations where there exist a
threat to peace or a breach of peace.[19] Actions of states to unilaterally exert
coercive economic measures against other states have no foundation in
international law. Various resolutions adopted by the United Nations organs
affirm this point.
The General Assembly has repeatedly
denounced economic coercion as a means of achieving political goals. The
resolution entitled "Economic Measures as a Means of Political and
Economic Coercion against Developing Countries" has strongly urged the
industrial nations to reject the use of their superior position as a means of
applying economic pressure "with the purpose of inducing changes in the
economic, political, commercial and social policies of other countries.”[20]
The United Nations Conference on
Trade and Development condemned the application of economic coercion,
especially when it is used against developing countries. That resolution also
signified that "such measures do not help to create the climate of peace
needed for development." In a resolution entitled “Rejection of Coercive
Economic Measures”, UNCTAD stipulates in part:
all developed countries shall refrain from applying trade restriction,
blockade, embargoes and other economic sanctions incompatible with the
provisions of the Charter of the United Nations ... against developing
countries as a form of political coercion which affects their economic,
political and social development.[21]
Many Western scholars have
questioned the legality of unilateral sanctions. For instance, in the wake of the "Arab
Oil embargo", a number of articles were published in American legal
periodicals indicating that the use of economic coercion constitutes a
violation of international law as envisioned by the United Nations Charter and
a number of the resolutions and declarations of the United Nations General
Assembly.
DW Bowett argued in 1972 that
economic measures could be characterized as illegal, where a specific treaty
commitments are breached or a general principle of international law, and in
particular the Non-intervention principle, is violated.[22] He later attempted to
establish criteria to distinguish the permissible economic conduct of states
from impermissible economic coercive measures and concluded that the motive or
purpose of the acting state should be the critical factor in determining the
illegality of an economic conduct. He wrote:
Much of state economic activity is harmful to other states for the very
reason that state economies are competitive and that promoting one's own
economy may well be injurious to others. This suggests that it will be
necessary to characterize unlawful economic measures by their intent rather
than their effect. In other words, measures not illegal per se may
become illegal only upon proof of an improper motive or purpose.[23]
Professor Lillich has argued that
"economic coercion, even of the most blatant type, is permissible when
undertaken pursuant to internationally-authorized measures." He further
noted that the real issue is the lawfulness of "the unilateral use of
economic coercion by a state or group of states without color of international
authorization." He concludes by finding a "general principle that
serious and sustained economic coercion should be accepted as a form of
permissible self-help only when it is also compatible with the overall
interests of the world community, as manifested in the principles of the UN
Charter or in decisions taken or documents promulgated thereunder."[24]
4.2.
Unilateral Sanctions Infringe Upon the Right to Development
As the Vienna Declaration and
Program of Action of June 25, 1993 has delineated, the Right to Development has
become a "universal and inalienable right and integral part of fundamental
human rights." The Declaration on Right to Development describes this
principle as "an inalienable human right by virtue of which every human
person and all peoples are entitled to participate in, contribute to, and enjoy
economic, social cultural and political development, in which all human rights
and fundamental freedoms can be fully realized."[25] Paragraph 4 of the Human Rights Commission
Resolution entitled "Human Rights and Unilateral Coercive Measures"
expressly lists restrictions on trade, blockade, embargoes and freezing of
assets as coercive measure constituting human rights offenses.[26]
4.3.
Unilateral Sanctions Violate the Principle of Non-Intervention in Internal
Affairs:
The principle of non-intervention is
backed by established and substantial state practice, indicating the existence
of opinio juris of states. The principle of non-intervention is embodied
in Article 8 of the 1933 Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of
States,[27] Article 15 of the 1948
Charter of the Organization of American States,[28] Article 8 of the 1945
Charter of the League of Arab States,[29] and Article 3 of the 1963
Charter of the Organization of African Unity.[30]
As mentioned earlier, according to
the Congressional Research Services, the United States defines economic
sanctions as nonmilitary actions that adversely affect the flow of goods,
services, or financial assets to a specific foreign country in order to penalize
or coerce a country for political purposes or to express U.S. displeasure with
that country's actions.
Article 32 of the Charter of
Economic Rights and Duties of States declares that no state may use or
encourage the use of economic, political or any other type of measures to
coerce another state in order to obtain from it the submission of the exercise
of its sovereign rights.
The principle has since been
reflected in numerous declarations adopted by international organizations and
conferences, including the General Assembly Resolution 2131 (XX) 1965, the
Declaration on the Inadmissibility of Intervention in the Domestic Affairs of
States and the Protection of their Independence and Sovereignty. Paragraph 2 of that resolution provides:
No State may use or encourage the use of economic, political or any
other type of measures to coerce another state in order to obtain from it the
subordination of the exercise of its sovereign rights or to secure from it
advantages of any kind.
The International Court of Justice
considered the content of this principle in the Case Concerning Military and
Para military Activities in and Against Nicaragua, and ruled in the following
terms:
In the view of the generally
accepted formulations, the principle forbids all states or groups of states to
intervene directly or indirectly in internal or external affairs of other
states. A prohibited intervention must accordingly be one bearing on matters in
which each state is permitted by the principle of state sovereignty, to decide
freely. One of these is the choice of a political, economic, social and
cultural system, and the formulation of foreign policy. Intervention is
wrongful when it uses methods of coercion in regard to such choices, which must
remain free one[31]
4.4.
Extra-Territorial Sanctions Violate the Principle of Non-Intervention in
External Affairs:
The General Assembly, in its
resolutions 47/19 and 50/10, while expressing concern over "application by
member states of laws and regulations whose extra-territorial effects affect
the sovereignty of other states and the legitimate interests of entities or
persons under their jurisdiction, and the freedom of trade and
navigation,"[32] reiterate its call to all
States to refrain from promulgating and applying such laws and measures in
conformity with their obligations under the Charter of the United Nations and
international law which, inter alia, reaffirm the freedom of trade and
navigation.[33] These resolutions call upon
States to revoke such laws:
Urges States which have such laws or measures to take the necessary
steps to repeal or invalidate them as soon as possible in accordance with their
legal regime.[34]
Moreover, there is ample evidence
that the principle of non-intervention encompasses the rejection of
intervention and interference in both internal and external affairs of other
states. The General Assembly Resolution
2131 elucidates the content of non-intervention principle in its Paragraph 1:
No State has the right to intervene, directly or indirectly, for any
reason whatsoever, in the internal or external affairs of any other state.
The American states have provided a
specific criterion concerning the non-intervention principle in Article 18 of
the "OAS Charter", adhered to by the United States:
No State or group of States has the right to intervene, directly or
indirectly, for any reason whatever, in the internal or external affairs of any
other State. The foregoing principle prohibits not only armed forces but also
other forms of interference or attempted threat against the personality of the
State or against its political, economic, and cultural elements.[35]
The Final Act of the Conference on
Security and Co-operation in Europe, which embraces the duty of
non-intervention, clearly stipulates that prohibition of intervention includes
both internal and external affairs of other states. Article IV of that Act
provides in parts:
The Participating States will refrain from intervention, direct or
indirect, individual or collective, in the internal or external affairs falling
within the domestic jurisdiction of another Participating State, regardless of
their mutual relations.[36]
The aforementioned decision of the
ICJ in the Nicaragua case also affirms that prohibition of intervention
includes intervention in external affairs.
4.5.
Sanctions against Iran Violate United States Treaty Obligations:
The sanctions, both primary and
secondary, violate the 1955 Treaty of Amity, Economic Relations, and Consular
Rights Between the United States and Iran, which according to the International Court of
Justice "remain part of the corpus of law applicable between the United
States and Iran.”[37]
According to Article X, Paragraph 1 of the treaty: “ Between
the territories of the two High Contracting Parties there shall be freedom of
commerce and navigation.” According to
Article VIII Paragraph 2: “Neither High Contracting Party shall impose
restrictions or prohibitions on the importation of any product of the other
High Contracting Party or on the exportation of any product to the territories
of the other High Contracting Party, unless the importation of the like product
of, or the exportation of the like product to, all third countries is similarly
restricted or prohibited.”
It is evident that the United States
by imposition of sanctions has violated its obligations under the Treaty of
Amity. In Nicaragua Case, the International Court of Justice considered the
imposition of total trade sanctions of May 1, 1985 by the United States against
Nicaragua and observed:
where there exists such a commitment, of the kind implied in a treaty
of friendship and commerce, such an abrupt act of termination of commercial
intercourse as the general trade embargo of 1 May 1985 will normally constitute
a violation of the obligation not to defeat the object and purpose of the
Treaty.[38]
The sanctions are also inconsistent
with the Algerian Declaration which was concluded between Iran and the U.S. in
1981 in order to end the hostage crisis.
The United States' commitment in
accordance with Paragraph 10 of the Declaration to rescind all trade sanctions
that were directed against Iran since November 1979 does not allow
re-imposition of similar sanctions.[39]
Secondly, the secondary sanctions
adopted by the United States are intended to disrupt Iran's relations with
other States, and to impact on its internal affairs, coercively and without any
legal justification, and accordingly constitute a breach of Paragraph 1 of the
Declaration, which prohibits any interference by the U.S. in Iranian Affairs.[40]
4.6.
Sanctions against Iran Are Not Justifiable as Countermeasures:
Motivated by domestic
considerations, particularly the attempt to appease the pro-Israeli special
interest groups during an election year, the United States administration
resorted to a number of allegations to justify its imposition of sanctions
against Iran and persuade others to join. The most famous of the accusations
have been sponsorship of international terrorism, acquisition or pursuit of
weapons of mass destructions, and violent opposition to the Middle East peace
process.
These justifications have no factual
foundations. Any serious examination of
the available evidence would illustrate that they have been the creation of
Israeli pressure groups which have been disseminated by the media without any
scrutiny or investigation.
Iran, as a major victim of
international terrorism, has not only condemned terrorism in all its forms and
manifestations, but also has proposed a number of practical steps to enhance
and promote international cooperation against this menace. Iran participated
actively in the development of the OIC Code of Conduct to Combat Terrorism and
positively contributed to the finalization of the resolution on terrorism
during the 51st Session of the General Assembly. In that Session, the Foreign Minister of Iran
called for serious global cooperation to eradicate terrorism, based on the
following criteria:
- Condemnation and rejection of all forms of terrorism,
regardless of the identity of victims or perpetrators, and irrespective of their political
tendencies and objectives;
- Refusal to provide sanctuary to terrorists or terrorist
groups and prevention of operation by or on behalf of terrorists; and
- Cessation of all baseless and unsubstantiated propaganda
and allegations.
Furthermore, US specialists,
including former high ranking officials, have admitted the absence of proof for
allegations of Iran's involvement in international terrorism. According to Gary
Sick, a former National Security aide, "if you read the Report (the State
Department Report on international terrorism in 1994 regarding Iran) ... it is
remarkably silent on evidence".[41]
On weapons of mass destruction, the
U.S. allegations are refuted by the international organizations particularly
mandated to monitor compliance on these matters. On chemical weapons, while Iran was the
victim of the most wide-spread use of these inhuman weapons in recent history,
Iran exercised the utmost scrutiny in never retaliating with such devices. The many missions dispatched by the United
Nations to investigate the use of chemical weapons during Iran-Iraq war all
concluded that Iraq had resorted to them even against civilians on both sides
and each time refuted counter-allegations by Iraq and its then ally the United
States against Iran.[42] On nuclear weapons, Iran has not only signed
and observed all international instruments on these weapons, including CTBT
recently, but also has opened its doors to IAEA inspections exceeding by far
its obligations. The IAEA experts and
authorities have time and again refuted the allegations and corroborated
Iranian compliance.[43] Mr. Hans Blix, the Head of International
Atomic Energy Agency, responding to allegations that Iran has deceived the IAEA
like Iraq, has stated in an article entitled “Great Openness in Iran”:
Let me say that Iran is a much more open society than Iraq was before
the Gulf war. A number of declared
nuclear-power plants are regularly visited in Iran by IAEA inspectors, without
any problem. Iran has also promised that
inspectors can visit “what place they want whenever they want”. At two
different occasions, one has asked, based on this promise, to visit
non-declared establishment - however without finding anything remarkable.[44]
Moreover,
in an interview with Austrian daily Die Presse, Mr. Blix stated, “we
have no reason to believe that Iran is hiding anything from us.” Responding to an inquiry concerning American
insistence on their allegations, Mr. Blix stated, “in any case, the agency has
not received any document or evidence from the United States or any other
source showing Iran’s failure to fulfil its obligations under the NPT.”[45]
Yet the United States, and
ironically Israel which is not even a member of NPT nor a participant in IAEA
safeguard mechanisms, do not abandon their campaign of deception and instead
try to change the position of IAEA not through facts but through political
pressure.[46]
In the Middle East, the United
States cannot blame the failure of the peace process on external forces. Iran has repeatedly said that the
shortcomings were inherent in an approach which did not seek to restore the inalienable
rights of Palestinians on the one hand and failed to address the expansionist
tendencies of Israel, now more on the surface than before, on the other. Events in the past several months have
corroborated this analysis and exposed the real causes of failure. Iran has stated clearly that while it
presents its views and opinions openly and frankly, it does not engage in any
activity to impede the peace process. It
is certainly not even conducive to the peace process itself to try to find a
non-existing external excuse for its inherent deficiencies.
Not only the factual bases of the
U.S. justifications remain seriously flawed, but it has no grounds in law to
use these allegations to justify its hostile policy towards Iran. The coercive economic measures adopted by the
United States against the Islamic Republic of Iran for achieving political
objectives, are not justifiable as countermeasures. The contemporary
international law restricts the extent to which an injured state may resort to
economic or political coercion by way of countermeasures: Firstly, only the
injured or victim State is entitled to resort to counter measures as defined
and limited by international law.[47] Secondly, resort to
specific types of countermeasures are prohibited. The International Law
Commission enlisted the "extreme economic or political coercion designed
to endanger the territorial integrity or political independence of the
State" among the outlawed countermeasures.[48]
4.7.
States and International Organizations Oppose Unilateral Sanctions and
Extra-Territorial Measures:
The strong opposition demonstrated
by various governments around the world has proved that the international
community rejects the extraterritorial application of domestic legislation by
the United States.
The European Union strongly opposed
the enactment of such legislation by the United States calling the
extraterritorial application of U.S. jurisdiction baseless in international
law. In a letter addressed to Senator Robert Dole on December 7, 1995, and in a
separate letter addressed to the State Department on December 8, 1995, the
European Union made a strong and unequivocal protest against the
extraterritorial application of the United States legislation, taking the
position “that the U.S. has no basis on international law to claim the right to
impose sanctions on any foreign person or foreign-owned company who supplies
Iran with oil development equipment.”[49]
The Non-Aligned Movement, in several
statements, including one adopted after the signature of D’Amato law, rejected
extra-territorial application of domestic law as illegal and unacceptable.[50] The Ministerial meeting of the Group of 77 in
New York in October 1996,[51] and the preparatory meeting
for the 24th OIC Ministerial Conference[52] adopted similar
positions. Finally, the General
Assembly, in its resolution A/51/L.23, called for the immediate repeal of
unilateral extraterritorial measures.
5.
Concluding Comments
The serious international opposition
to U.S. unilateral measures, particularly those with an extra-territorial
dimension, indicates that the world community has detected the gravity of this
new tendency and its implications which go well beyond the attempt by the United States to implement
its hostile policy against Iran or a few other states.
In fact, the underlying tendencies
that are manifested in the new wave of extraterritorial measures of U.S.
Congress are unilateralism and neo-expansionism. These two phenomena are not exclusively
manifested in new extra-territorial sanctions, but in fact represent a wider
problem of orientation, probably emanating from a misreading of post-cold-war
international developments by U.S. lawmakers.
This misperception, which may have gone beyond Congress and become a
problem in the entire American polity,
can have far-reaching implications for the future behavior and future
role of the United States and for international peace and security.
The misperception in the U.S. can
only lead to isolation of U.S. policy globally.
But it will also lead, and indeed has lead, to more assertiveness on the
part of Europe, Japan and other industrialized countries. The fruits of this new assertiveness will be
reaped by Europe and Japan both globally through boosting their presence and
influence in the economic, political and strategic fields, as well as in the
region and vis-a-vis Iran.
[1]M. Javad Zarif, Ph.D.,
[2]The Committee on Economic
Sanctions cited in Donald Losman, International Economic Sanctions,
(Albuquerque, New Mexico: University of New Mexico Press, 1979), p. 1.
[3]Cited in Harry Strack, Sanctions,
(New York: Syracuse University Press, 1978), p.11.
[4]See for instance, Myres
McDougal and Florentine Feliciano, Law and Minimum World Public Order,
(London: Yale University Press, 1961) p. 263.
[5]See for instance, Johan
Galtung, “On the Effects of International Economic Sanctions,” World
Politics, Volume 19, 1967.
[6]See M. Javad Zarif Multilateral
Sanctions In International Relations, (Master’s Thesis, 1982).
[7]See Hans Kochler, The
United Nations Sanctions Policy and International Law, Just World Trust,
1995, pp. 6-7.
[8]See Zarif, Op. Cit, pp.
5-10.
[9]Congressional Research
Service Report for Congress, August, 10, 1992.
[10]Kenneth Katzman, Iran:
Current Development and U.S. Policy, CRS Issue Brief, updated Feb. 1996,
p.11.
[11]Ibid.
[12]Public Law 102-484.
[13]Katzman, p.11.
[14]Ibid., p. 14.
[15]Public Law 103-87.
[16]Executive Order 12959.
[17]Katzman, p. 13.
[18]
[19]See Article 39 of the
Charter.
[20]G.A. Resolution 210 of
December 1991.
[21]UNCTAD Resolution 152 (IV)
dated July 2, 1983.
[22]D. W. Bowett, "Economic
Coercion and Reprisals By States", 13
[23] D.W. Bowett,
"International Law and Economic Coercion", 16
[24]Richard C. Lillich, Economic
Coercion and the New International Economic Order, 1976.
[25]General Assembly Resolution
XLI of December 4, 1984.
[26]See Resolution dated March
4, 1994 of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.
[27]LNTS, 165, p. 19.
[28]UNTS, 119, p. 49.
[29]UNTS, 70, p. 237.
[30]Peaselee, International
Governmental Organizations, 3 rd. revised edition, 1974, p. 1165.
[31]ICJ Reports, Case Concerning
Military and Para-military Activities In and Against Nicaragua, 1986, p. 108.
[32]General Assembly Resolution
47/19, dated 24 November 1992.
[33]General Assembly Resolution
50/10.
[34]General Assembly Resolution
50/10 repeats the call for invalidation of such laws.
[35]April 30, 1948, 2 UST, 2394;
119 UNTS 3.
[36]Conference on Security and
Cooperation in
[37]I.C.J. Reports, Case
Concerning United States Diplomatic and Consular Staff in Tehran, Judgment of
May 24, 1980, p. 28.
[38] I.C.J. Reports, Case
Concerning Military and Paramilitary Activities In and Against Nicaragua, 1986,
p. 128, para. 276.
[39]Paragraph 10 of the
General Declaration provides: “Upon
the making by the Government of Algeria of the certification described in
Paragraph 3 above, the
[40]The General Declaration, in
Point I entitled “Non-Intervention in Iranian Affairs”, Paragraph 1, provides:
”The United States pledges that it is and from now on will be the policy of the
United States not to intervene, directly or indirectly, politically or
militarily, in Iran's internal affairs.”
[41]Statement in a Middle East
Policy Council Meeting, "U.S. Policy toward
[42]See reports of the missions
dispatched by the Secretary-General of the United Nations to investigate uses
of chemical weapons during the Iran-Iraq war, and the statements and resolution
adopted by the Security Council, including S/17130, S/17932 and SCR 612.
[43]See for instance INFCIRC/406
of the IAEA and comments made by IAEA officials on the subject on several
instances.
[44]Dagens Nyheter, 21 December 1995. See also the issue of 19 January 1996.
[45]Die Presse, 20 March 1995.
[46]See for instance, Washington
Post, 15 February 1992.
[47]The International Court of
Justice observed in Nicaragua Case: "The acts of which Nicaragua is
accused, even assuming them to have been established and imputable to that
state, could only have justified proportionate counter-measures on the part of the
State which had been the victim of these acts, namely El Salvador, Honduras or
Costa Rica. They could not justify counter-measures taken by a third State, the
[48]See the Report of International Law Commission on the work of its forty-eight session, (A/51/10) P.145. Noting the absence of any other provision condemning individual coercive measures, some authors maintain that Article 2, paragraph 4 applies not onl