A/HRC/42/46 a president stood against the principles of humanitarianism”.38 Responding to a question on the situation in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, the Spokesperson of the United Nations Secretary-General has said that “humanitarian action needs to be independent of political, military or other objectives”.39 33. It is crucial to reaffirm the core humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence that should always govern the work of humanitarian organizations. The first three principles (humanity, neutrality and impartiality) have been formally endorsed in General Assembly resolution 46/182, 40 while the fourth principle (independence) has been recognized in Assembly resolution 58/114. The Assembly has repeatedly stressed the importance of promoting and respecting these principles within the framework of humanitarian assistance.41 34. Economic sanctions are preventing the Government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela from addressing the dire economic situation and the humanitarian crisis in the country. Global banks voluntarily comply with United States sanctions that prohibit transactions involving certain debts or equities, and certain other transactions and services involving the Government, thus effectively impeding the latter’s access to financial markets.42 The Government has already pointed to the serious financial consequences of the previous sanctions restricting access by Petróleos de Venezuela to financial markets, stressing that these amounted to “closing the possibility of issuing and negotiating optimally new debt, which may eventually lead to the breach of the obligations internationally incurred by the Republic, placing the assets that are outside the national territory at serious risk, which potentially can be subject to embargo and executed for the forced and anticipated fulfilment of the obligations contracted by the country”.43 35. Concerns have been expressed about the possibility that the stronger sanctions on Petróleos de Venezuela “will further exacerbate Venezuela’s difficult humanitarian crisis, already marked by shortages of food and medicines and mass migration, by limiting the country’s key source of revenue”.44 In 2018, the former Ambassador of the United States to Venezuela, William Brownfield, said: “If we are going to sanction [Petróleos de Venezuela], it will have an impact on the entire people, on the ordinary citizen. The counter-argument is that the people suffer so much from the lack of food, security, medicines, public health, that at this moment perhaps the best resolution would be to accelerate the collapse, even if it produces a period of suffering of months or perhaps years”.45 D. Russian Federation 36. The restrictive measures imposed by the European Union on the Russian Federation were extended again in 2018, until 31 July 2019,46 whereas those enacted by the United 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 10 Ibid. Comment made on 11 February 2019 during the daily press briefing by the Office of the Spokesperson for the Secretary-General (www.un.org/press/en/2019/db190211.doc.htm). In that resolution, the General Assembly also stresses that the sovereignty, territorial integrity and national unity of States must be fully respected in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations and that humanitarian assistance should be provided with the consent of the affected country and in principle on the basis of an appeal by the affected country. See also www.unocha.org/sites/dms/Documents/OOM-humanitarianprinciples_eng_June12.pdf. See, e.g., the sanctions policy statement issued by HSBC, available from www.business.hsbc.pl//media/library/markets-selective/poland/pdf/additional-restrictions-pl.pdf. Permanent Mission of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela to the United Nations Office and other international organizations in Geneva, “On the economic war and unilateral coercive measures against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela”, email to the Special Representative, 12 July 2018. See also A/73/175, para. 12. Congressional Research Service, “Venezuela: overview of US sanctions” (8 March 2019). See www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJBoe3AvSvc. The main European Union sanctions targeting the financial, energy and defence sectors of the Russian Federation in relation to the events in Ukraine and Crimea were extended most recently through