A/HRC/30/45 Security Council sanctions may distort the purpose of the latter, putting their initial balance out of kilter. The result may be to transform what was intended to be a “smart” coercive sanction into a comprehensive coercive measure. In the same way, when a number of diverse “smart” unilateral coercive measures converge on the same country, their summation may become a comprehensive coercive measure. Nor does this comprehensiveness, which carries a particularly high cost in terms of adverse human rights impact, necessarily increase the efficiency of the measures. Two cases in point are the coercive measures imposed on Cuba and Iran (Islamic Republic of). It is fortunate that, under the recent initiative of the President of the United States, targeted measures that, when added up become comprehensive coercive measures, are now being called into question. The point is illustrated by the United States Secretary of State, who referred to the transition in relations between the United States and Cuba as taking place because the President “made a personal, fundamental decision to change a policy that didn’t work and that had been in place not working for far too long”.12 32. More generally, gaps still occur between the safeguards surrounding policy on unilateral coercive measures and the real-life adverse human rights impacts of such measures. These gaps need to be investigated, identified and overcome. 33. Progress achieved by source countries in fine-tuning policies on unilateral coercive measures has resulted, inter alia, in the European Union giving up resort to autonomous comprehensive sanctions. However, when targeting a vital sector such as oil and petroleum product exports, such “targeted” measures come to affect, at least indirectly, the whole economy or financial system of a country. There is now also greater recognition that, contrary to past practice, the purpose of unilateral coercive measures should not be to advance the economic interests of source countries. Their proclaimed objective is of late becoming “the upholding of international law, human rights law and humanitarian law”. VI. Negative human rights impacts: how to eliminate or mitigate them and to provide redress for their victims and guidance from international law, human rights law and humanitarian law A. Elimination of unilateral coercive measures or restrictions to their use 34. The most obvious answer to the first question is to renounce unilateral coercive measures as a tool of foreign policy in recognition of the overarching principle of selfdetermination proclaimed in articles 1 of both the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. It is also a recognized principle of customary international law that even economic measures not otherwise prohibited become unlawful if they coerce a State to take action in an area in which it has the right to decide freely. The Vienna Declaration itself, in its part I, paragraph 31, called upon all States “to refrain from any unilateral measure not in accordance with international law and the Charter of the United Nations that create obstacles to trade relations among States and impedes the full realization of the human rights set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and international human rights instruments in particular the right of everyone to a standard of living adequate for their health and wellbeing including food and medical care, housing and the necessary social services”. Likewise, the Declaration on Principles of International Law Concerning Friendly Relations 12 See www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2015/07/244542.htm. 9