Washington\u2019s sanctions against Tehran and their enforcement in third countries clash with international law, the UN Human Rights Council stated on Tuesday, citing the findings of two special rapporteurs concerning Iranians suffering from thalassemia.
\n\u201cThe legality of the US unilateral sanctions against Iran is doubtful under international law, and so is the legality of their extraterritorial enforcement,\u201d Alena Douhan and Obiora Okafor said in a statement. \u201cStill companies outside the US feel obliged to comply to avoid facing legal or business repercussions.\u201d
\nDouhan is the special rapporteur on the negative impact of the unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights, while Okafor is an independent expert on human rights and international solidarity. They looked into the ways the US embargo \u2013 imposed unilaterally in 2018 after Washington reneged on the 2015 nuclear deal \u2013 has affected Iranians suffering from thalassemia, a hereditary blood disorder.
\nIran has a \u201cparticularly high number\u201d of patients with thalassemia, who require specialized medication during blood transfusions. They are manufactured by the Swiss company Novartis, with components sourced from the French company Roquette Freres, but were \u201cdenied to Iran\u201d due to \u201cfear in medical, delivery and insurance business sectors,\u201d the experts said.
\n\u201cThe humanitarian exemptions for medical goods in US sanctions regulations are complex and unclear,\u201d Douhan and Okafor said, while Washington imposes high fines on companies selling medication to Iran, which leads to their \u201cover-compliance.\u201d
\nEven when a delivery is authorized, \u201cproducers, shippers, insurers, or banks\u201d are reluctant to do business with Iran fearing \u201caggressive US sanctions enforcement and penalties,\u201d they noted. This has led to \u201cfear, pain and premature death\u201d among thalassemia patients.
\nOkafor and Douhan called on the US government to remove any obstacles to financial transactions for medical purposes, effectively implement humanitarian exemptions, and not impose secondary sanctions on medical exports to Iran, while urging other UN members to abide by their human rights obligations.
\nThe US, UK, France, Russia, China, and Germany struck an agreement with Iran \u2013 known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) \u2013 in 2015, which had Tehran curtail its nuclear energy research in exchange for relief from UN sanctions. The US unilaterally left the JCPOA in 2018, imposing its own sanctions and insisting on punishing anyone, anywhere who failed to abide by them.<\/p>\n
Rt<\/p>\n
Tags\uff1asanctions<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Washington\u2019s sanctions against Tehran and their enforcement in third countries clash with international law, the UN Human Rights Council stated on Tuesday, citing the findings of two special rapporteurs concerning Iranians suffering from thalassemia. \u201cThe legality of the US unilateral sanctions against Iran is doubtful under international law, and so is the legality of their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":5862,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1154],"tags":[1615,2089],"class_list":["post-5861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-iran","tag-sanctions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5861"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5861\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5863,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5861\/revisions\/5863"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}