Law

Economic Sanctions Kill

by Alfred de Zayas,* Geneva

(28 March 2022) AdZ. This article draws on the research of other scholars including Jeffrey Sachs and Mark Weisbrot and encourages further research by UN agencies including UNICEF, WHO, FAO to quantify the concrete harm done by economic sanctions, in particular the nexus between sanctions and famine, sanctions and scarcity of medicines (the ECWAS study on Syria is very revealing) and suggests that because of the tens of thousands of deaths caused by sanctions world-wide, they should be considered under article 7 of the Rome Statute as crimes against humanity.

New release

“Building a Just World Order”

A New Functional Paradigm of Human Rights

by Johannes van Aggelen*

(14 February 2022) Alfred de Zayas’s “Building a Just World Order” is fascinating and erudite book that encompasses in fourteen sections the spectrum of human rights issues dealt with by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, where the author worked as a senior lawyer for over two decades, and which he also served as a consultant and UN Independent Expert on the Promotion of a Democratic and Equitable International Order (2012–2018).

Who Will Guard the Guardians?

by Alfred de Zayas

(29 January 2022) As we surf on the mainstream media, listen to the telejournal, check out the social media, we can witness how fake news evolves into fake history and how politicians and journalists instrumentalize both to concoct fake law. I think that we can say, without fear of contradiction, that there is a veritable war on truth. Surely, we are on a slippery slope toward fake democracy – or are we already there?

Great Britain wants to extradite Julian Assange

Fundamental failure of Western constitutional states. Civil society appalled by government action

by Robert Seidel

(30 December 2021) The inconceivable is about to become true. After more than 10 years of judicial scandals, cover-ups, disappearances, solitary confinement, international collusion among Western governments, the combined US power has succeeded to subject the courageous and committed investigative journalist Julian Assange to an unfair trial in the USA that will disregard all norms of the rule of law. What will be awaiting for him in the USA is known worldwide: not justice, but ill-disguised revenge. Revenge on what?

U.S. return to UN Human Rights Council – a mockery of its raison d'être

Alfred de Zayas and Adriel Kasonta*

(20 November 2021) The U.S. regained its seat on the UN Human Rights Council in an uncontested vote in the UN General Assembly on October 14, 2021, after the administration of former U.S. President Donald Trump quit the 47-member body in 2018 citing the "chronic bias" against Israel.

Unilateral coercive measures are illegal and counter-productive

They destabilize the States and force them to retrench instead of opening-up

by Alfred de Zayas*

(3 October 2021) Ed. This analysis was presented by the author on 22 September during an expert conference conducted as a side event to the 48th Session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, held from 13 September to 8 October 2021. Among the experts Professor Dr. Alena Douhan, the current UN Special Rapporteur on Unilateral coercive measures, made a presentation based on her report to the Human Rights Council 2021

The theory and practice of “Unilateral coercive measures” (UCM) is characterized by fake news, fake law, false flags, and double-standards. As far as the legal basis for the imposition of sanctions, only those imposed by the Security Council under article 41 of the UN Charter can be termed legal.