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An American scholar has described the use of sanctions against Iran as a crime to be investigated by the International Criminal Court (ICC) and called on the United Nations to denounce inhumane US sanctions instead of approving unilateral resolutions on human rights in Islamic countries Republic.
Richard Falk, a scholar of international law and international relations who taught at Princeton University for forty years, said in an interview with Press TV days after the UN General Assembly (UNGA) passed a Canadian-drafted anti-Iran resolution .
He said the document’s main sponsors, including Saudi Arabia, Israel and the United States, have shown relentless hostility towards Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution and are notorious human rights abusers themselves.
“It is a resolution that is objectionable in several ways. The resolution’s hypocrisy is shameless, â€he added.
The resolution was passed on Thursday with 78 for, 31 against and 69 abstentions. She accuses Iran of “widespread violations of the fundamental rights of its people” and calls on the Tehran government to improve the human rights situation in the country.
Falk called on the United Nations to censor the sanctions that the administration of former US President Donald Trump imposed on Iran after withdrawing from the 2015 agreement and maintained by his successor Joe Biden.
“From an objective point of view, it is the harsh sanctions that the US imposed in 2018 during the Trump presidency, but which the Biden political leadership in Washington has maintained so far, that deserve a denunciation at the UN,” he said.
“The United Nations is discrediting its own commitment to human rights by supporting this unilateral resolution on the ‘human rights situation in Iran’. The US sanctions, which have generally reduced Iranian income from oil exports and trade from $ 46 billion in 2019 to $ 28 billion in 2020, have caused massive suffering for the Iranian people. “
The scientist also noted that applying sanctions against Iran amounts to using a weapon of mass destruction, which is a crime against humanity worthy of investigation by the ICC.
“For many years, these penal sanctions hit the poor in Iran in particular, but also the middle class, and violated basic human rights such as the right to life and the right to food, both of which are legally protected rights under international law,” he said.
“It is time to condemn the use of sanctions as a geopolitical tool to intimidate and punish countries under attack from the West, particularly the United States, and its people. Against this background, the UNGA resolution, which is critical of human rights, serves to rationalize and even justify the policy of sanctions despite the interference with the sovereign rights of Iran. “
In a statement on Friday, Zahra Ershadi, deputy permanent representative of Iran to the United Nations, said the UNGA resolution exposes the hostile policies of its sponsors and their intent to incite Iranophobia.
Falk said Ershadi was certainly right in saying the document was an expression of hostility.
“Trump’s approach was grosser – he unconditionally supported Israel’s anti-Iranian regional agenda and believed that threats and coercion against Iran would form the basis for successful transactional diplomacy. In hindsight, Trump’s transactional approach has not led Iran to surrender politically or to come to the negotiating table with a willingness to sacrifice its sovereign rights to the dictates of countries that have chosen to destabilize and in the hope of unifying To bring about regime change in Tehran by all means. legal or not, moral or not, prudent or not, â€he explained.
“Biden has made it clear that he wants to modify this direct confrontational approach without weakening the partisan embrace of so-called ‘special relations’ with Israel and Saudi Arabia. Such geopolitical acrobatics are sure to fail as the goals are conflicting … To date, evidence suggests that Biden’s priorities are domestic and he is unwilling to risk tension with Israel while looking for a new avenue on one seeks a restored nuclear agreement and a path that leads to peace, stability and normalization “,
Falk further described the UN resolution as “another sign” that Iran should not expect the US government under Biden’s leadership to lose either the hostile orientation of the past 40 years or the partisan pro-Israel diplomacy of the past 75 years deviates.
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