Economic Sanctions Against Human Rights Violations

Abstract

The idea of human rights protection, historically, has been considered as a domestic matter, to be realized by individual states within their domestic law and national institutions. The protection and promotion of human rights, however, have become one of the most important issues for the international community as a whole. Yet, with time, it has become increasingly difficult for the international community to address human rights problems collectively. Despite a significant development in the human rights norms, effective protection of fundamental human rights and their legal enforcement has a long way to go. This paper will argue that economic sanctions can contribute to a decrease in individual states' human rights violations and can be an effective enforcement tool for international law.The international community, including the U.N., should impose effective economic sanctions against states where gross human rights violators are.Economic sanctions have been widely used by the U.N. since the end of the Cold War. Their purpose is generally not to punish the individual state but to modify its behavior. However, such sanctions conflict with other fundamental principles of international law, namely the principle of non-intervention and state sovereignty. Economic sanctions can also conflict with the WTO's first agenda: free trade. Even worse, economic sanctions are criticized because these sanctions are, arguably, targeted at the people at large, not to the regime, a violator of international norms. This paper will review the role of economic sanctions in international human rights law.Chapter II examines the principle of non-intervention and whether its exceptions are in international human rights law. Chapter III reviews the doctrines and practices of economic sanctions for human rights protection by the U.N. Security Council, the U.S., and the E.U.Chapter IV examines the legality of the economic sanctions against human rights violations under the WTO system and reviews the possibility of the harmonization of international ii economic law with international human rights law. Lastly, Chapter V concludes by emphasizing the importance of economic sanctions against human rights violations.