A/HRC/30/45 61. The debate as to whether autonomous policies of retorsion/retaliation or of countermeasures by States or groups of States warrant unilateral coercive measures in such circumstances and whether or not they comply with international law, customary law and peremptory norms of behaviour, is essentially a political debate between source and target countries. The pragmatic way out of the resulting conundrum has been to focus on the efficiency and effectiveness of such measures and on their human rights impact. The argument goes that if measures achieve their objectives rapidly and if these objectives are viewed as desirable by the international community, they may be considered as legitimate. However, this legitimacy is undermined if the measures have caused, by design or by default, egregious violations of basic human rights. 62. The search for international legitimacy has therefore led to a flurry of initiatives to focus on universally accepted targets, to be monitored closely and adjusted as warranted by evolving circumstances. The aims of the measures targeting countries are to be limited to changing the target country’s behaviour if, and only if, it is in breach of an international treaty, covenant or agreement or to signal the international community’s disapproval of the targeted country’s behaviour. The measures should be time-bound and in view of the modesty of the outcome of unilateral coercive measures in achieving their goals so far,46 should be combined with a series of other complementary efforts including incentives and negotiations to increase chances of success. 63. But if the human rights impact of unilateral coercive measures on the most vulnerable groups is egregious and if there is no perceptible progress towards the achievement of the proclaimed target, the legitimacy of these measures will be called into question even if a good legal case can be made in support of the action. 64. Resort to unilateral coercive measures in this case is not conditional on demonstration of direct injury by the source-State or group of States. Keeping in mind as a guiding thread the fate of rights holders in target countries who should be protected both by their authorities and by the source countries, it is suggested that the focus of investigations be pragmatic, i.e. to get a full picture of the unilateral coercive measures under implementation, to devise parameters to assess their human rights impact while distinguishing correlation from causation, to identify best institutional practice in source countries and devise United Nations guidelines applicable to such measures to correct and redress their negative impact. This conceptual approach will have to be confronted with case studies to ensure, at all times, a reality check for ongoing research in this regard. 46 18 The rate of success of unilateral coercive measures in the pre-globalization era was 34 per cent and has gone down since then as South-South cooperation mainly with new world economic powerhouses has reduced the constraints of embargoes coming from advanced industrialized countries. See Heather Chingono, Medial Hove and Steven James Danda “Sanctions Effectiveness in a Globalized World”, International Journal of Humanities and Social Studies, Vol.3, No. 21, December 2013. The success rate of unilateral coercive measures is, however, improved when their impact is compounded not only by incentives but also by supportive international economic trends. Thus unilateral coercive measures of 2012 imposing an embargo on Iranian oil exports added to the drop in oil prices in 2015 enhanced pressure to seal the nuclear deal between the five plus one group and Iran (Islamic Republic of). These developments with respect to Iran (Islamic Republic of) and those relating to the policy to end the comprehensive unilateral coercive measures against Cuba may be the harbingers of a new future trend to seek solutions to international conflicts of interest through negotiation and diplomacy rather than through economic or military violence.