"The adverse consequences of economic sanctions on the enjoyment of human rights"
Working paper prepared by Mr. Marc Bossuyt
United Nations
Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights21 June 2000
The following is an excerpt from the working paper prepared by Marc Bossuyt for the U.N. Sub-Commission (U.N. Document E/CN.4/Sub.2/2000/33). To download the full report from the U.N. website, click here. To learn more about the U.N. Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, click here.
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71. The sanctions regime against Iraq is unequivocally illegal under existing international humanitarian law and human rights law. Some would go as far as making a charge of genocide.58 Article II of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which entered into force on 12 January 1951, defines genocide as follows:
"Any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily harm or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
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72. The sanctions regime against Iraq has as its clear purpose the deliberate infliction on the Iraqi people of conditions of life (lack of adequate food, medicines, etc.) calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part. It does not matter that this deliberate physical destruction has as its ostensible objective the security of the region. Once clear evidence was available that thousands of civilians were dying and that hundreds of thousands would die in the future as the Security Council continued the sanctions, the deaths were no longer an unintended side effect - the Security Council was responsible for all known consequences of its actions. The sanctioning bodies cannot be absolved from having the "intent to destroy" the Iraqi people. The United States Ambassador to the United Nations in fact admitted this; when questioned whether the half million deaths were "worth it", she replied: "we think the price is worth it".59 The States imposing the sanctions could raise questions under the genocide Convention.
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