In the framework of permanent cooperation with UN bodies and agencies, our Association sent own submission for the upcoming thematic reports regarding the impact of unilateral coercive measures, to be presented at the 60th session of the Human Rights Council and at the 80th session of the UN General Assembly.
ARC’s submission, published at official UN web-sources now, stressed again that sanctions against Russia, North Korea, and Belarus are the only effective tool to make influence on their economic system and politic regime in modern conditions, limiting the Russia’s criminal acts against Ukrainian people.
ARC’s submission reminded that the unilateral sanctions of various UN member states established against Russia and Russia-controlled structures in Ukraine have a strong positive human rights impact, as they limit the Russian economy and, correspondingly, Russian troops and Russian mercenaries from committing new broad-scale human rights violations, war crimes, and genocide against the Ukrainian population.
ARC’s submission added that unilateral sanctions against Russia and Belarus are the strongest tool of countering the deportation of Ukrainian youth, countering the illegal indoctrination and militarization of those youth instead of “school education” in camps located in the occupied Crimea, Russia, and Belarus.
Our Association stressed again in submission that the general situation with the monitoring of human rights in specific national situations must take into account that the main form of assessment of the effectiveness of sanctions, it must reflect the level of violation of the demands of international law by the state, which is the object of sanction policy, before and after the relevant sanctions were imposed or changed.
The main criteria may be the quantity of people whose rights were violated by the regime (government), which is the object of sanction policy, before and after sanctions started; by the level of punitive and military bodies’ potential in such a state before and after sanctions started etc.
So, regarding the examples pointed out by ARC in the submission, the sanctions are effective tool of defense the Ukrainians’ social, educational and other rights, if the limit the Russia’s possibilities to commit next crimes against humanity and genocidal acts in Ukraine.
ARC’s submission added that key international bodies in that area, exactly the UN structures and some specialized agencies like OSCE, must be the key actors in the relevant monitoring policy and producing analyses on sanction issues, but their impartiality must be guaranteed by multinational expert representation in such international bodies.
Let us remind that now Ms. Alena Douhan from Belarus is the UN Special Rapporteur on unilateral coercive measures, and relevant reports often reflected positions of non-democratic regimes on sanction issues without objective criticism; the next election of that UN Special Rapporteur will be in the beginning of 2026.
