The sanctions imposed by the United States against three dozen countries in the world are in violation of international law and US laws themselves.
In the case of the unilateral and criminal imposition of these measures against Venezuela, each of the executive orders announced since March 2015 declares that the United States is suffering a “national emergency” due to the situation in the Caribbean country.
The US legal framework requires that in order to impose sanctions, a declaration of national emergency is made, as established in the National Emergencies Law of 1976.
“It is evident that Venezuela has not created any national emergency for the United States. The executive order also establishes as required by law that Venezuela represents “an unusual and extraordinary threat to national security.” This is also baseless. It is unclear what can be done to enforce the law regarding these false statements. US courts have been very reluctant to enforce laws lest they run afoul of the president’s foreign policy decisions, even when they appear to violate the Constitution,” according to the report “Economic Sanctions as Collective Punishment: The Case of Venezuela,” from the Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Research.
“Unilateral sanctions imposed by the Trump administration are illegal under the Charter of the Organization of American States. Many provisions in the Charter prohibit them,” say Mark Weisbrot and Jeffrey Sachs, authors of the May 2019 report.
Article 19 of the OAS Charter establishes that “no State or group of States has the right to intervene, directly or indirectly, and for whatever reason, in the internal or external affairs of any other. The previous principle excludes not only armed force, but also any other form of interference or tendency to attack the personality of the State, the political, economic and cultural elements that constitute it.
Article 20 says that “no State may apply or encourage coercive measures of an economic and political nature to force the sovereign will of another State and obtain from it advantages of any nature.”
“Regarding Article 19, the US government is directly interfering in the internal affairs of Venezuela. This is especially true in light of the statements and actions of Washington officials that indicate that their goal is the overthrow of the Venezuelan government,” they state.
“Several legal scholars have pointed out that economic sanctions of this type violate international law, including the Charter of the United Nations,” the report states.
It seems obvious that sanctions that cause widespread hunger and disease violate human rights.
“It is worth noting that both the Hague and Geneva Conventions, to which the US is a signatory, prohibit the collective punishment of civilians. Although these treaties apply in times of war, UN human rights experts argue that it makes no sense that civilians should only have this protection in situations of armed conflict.
Data
- Mortality increased 31% between 2017 and 2018, representing an increase of 40,000 deaths, according to the National Survey of Living Conditions.
- 4 M diabetics and hypertensives did not access their treatments due to the blocking of resources and the prohibition of laboratories.
- 80,000 HIV patients have not received antiretroviral treatment since 2017 due to the cut in supply to the country.
- 16,000 cancer patients and 16,000 for dialysis without treatment due to the refusal to sell the treatments to Venezuela.
Statements that reveal the real imperial intention
Economic and political coercive measures to force the sovereign will of a State, although they are strictly prohibited by the OAS, are revealed in the statements of Washington officials.
Former Vice President Mike Pence stated on several occasions that “Maduro must go.”
It is public, through its own spokesmen, that the US was “maintaining direct communications with members of the Venezuelan Army urging them to abandon President Nicolás Maduro, and that it is also preparing new sanctions to increase pressure on him,” says the report by the Center for Economic and Policy Research.
When asked about the impetus that Juan Guaidó gave to the strategy against Venezuela, Mike Pompeo replied that “the circle is narrowing, the humanitarian crisis is increasing every hour. I spoke with our most senior person there in Venezuela. You can see the increasing pain and suffering that Venezuelans are enduring.”
Andrew McCabe, former deputy director of the FBI in his book The Threat, quotes Trump as saying: “That is the country we should be at war with. They have all that oil and it’s right at our back door.”
