A/HRC/27/32 I. Introduction 1. The present report is submitted in accordance with Human Rights Council resolution 24/14, in which the Council requested the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) to organize a workshop on the impact of the application of unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights by the affected populations, in particular their socioeconomic impact on women and children, in the States targeted, and to prepare a report on the proceedings of the workshop and to submit it to the Human Rights Council at its twenty-seventh session. II. Organization of the workshop 2. The workshop was held on 23 May 2014 in Geneva. It was chaired and moderated by Vera Gowlland-Debbas, Emeritus Professor of International Law at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. The workshop comprised an opening session and three subsequent thematic sessions: session I, on assessing the impact of unilateral coercive measures on human rights, in particular of women and children; session II, on mechanisms to assess and mitigate the adverse impact of unilateral coercive measures and ensure accountability; and session III, on contemporary unilateral coercive measures: learning lessons from the past to develop basic principles to redress adverse impacts. During the thematic sessions, nine panellists made presentations; each thematic set of panel presentations was followed by an interactive dialogue. The workshop also included a presentation by the Human Rights Council Advisory Committee on its forthcoming research-based report on mechanisms to assess the negative impact of unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights and to promote accountability, the preparation of which was requested by the Council in its resolution 24/14. 3. The objectives of the workshop were to provide a platform for the exchange of views among States, academic and civil society experts, and human rights mechanisms on the impact of unilateral coercive measures on human rights, especially of women and children; to follow up on the recommendations of the previous workshop, held in 2013, and contribute to the current efforts of the Human Rights Council Advisory Committee to identify mechanisms to assess and mitigate the adverse impact of unilateral coercive measures and ensure accountability; and to share experiences of contemporary unilateral coercive measures and learn lessons from the past as a first step towards developing basic principles and guidelines to redress the adverse impacts of unilateral coercive measures. III. Opening session 4. In opening the workshop, the Chair noted a progressive limitation of the freedom of States to resort to unilateral measures since the adoption of the Charter of the United Nations. In its resolution 2625 (XXV), the General Assembly considered that the use of coercive measures in order to obtain from a State the subordination of the exercise of its sovereign rights and to secure from it advantages of any kind violated the principle of nonintervention. However, under the customary international law of State responsibility, codified by the International Law Commission, countermeasures which would otherwise constitute illegal measures were justified if taken by a State injured by an internationally wrongful act of another State, provided they complied with certain conditions and limitations. Those conditions included the principle of proportionality, respect for obligations for the protection of fundamental human rights and respect for obligations of a humanitarian character, as well as peremptory norms of general international law. The 3