A/HRC/30/45 unilateral coercive measures on the targeted country, non-compliance leading to heavy unilateral penalties. V. Historical retrospect A. Early uses of unilateral coercive measures 23. There has been a spectacular increase in the resort to unilateral coercive measures since the 1990s. However this form of pressure, which has a particularly negative impact on the enjoyment of human rights when imposed by stronger States or groups of States against weaker ones, is not new. There are records that indicate that already in Ancient Greece in 492 BC, the city-State of Aegina seized Athenian ships and held their passengers hostage as a response to Athens holding Aeginians captive.7 24. In the Middle Ages, during the Crusades, religious leaders and church councils in Europe practiced unilateral coercive measures by prohibiting the export of ships, weapons and ammunitions to the Saracens, as Arabs or Muslims were referred to in those days. 8 This became official Holy See policy from the Council of Lateran in 1179 until it was denounced, four centuries later, by Martin Luther.9 It is interesting to note that, already in those days, the claim to oblige traders from third parties to apply one’s own embargo on a target country was invoked. Thus a historian from that period, Peter the Chanter, reports the case of the citizens of Marseilles opposing foreign traders moored in their port and intent on shipping timber and weapons to Alexandria. They called on three bishops to intervene. The latter obliged by excommunicating the traders who, unperturbed, sailed out of the port. The historian reports that they had hardly covered a mile at sea when the ship sank with its crew and cargo.10 25. A more recent case in point is the blockade of Germany after the cessation of World War I in order to coerce that country to stand down from its opposition to certain leonine clauses of the Treaty of Versailles. The unilateral coercive measure applied against Germany visited untold sufferings on the German population, whose basic rights were ignored.11 In fact, the founding fathers of the League of Nations considered coercive measures as the backbone of its policies for the maintenance of peace. That was already a progress on the past, when such measures and in particular blockades were a prelude to war or part of the stratagems of war itself. 26. One could also mention the unilateral coercive measures applied at the initiative of Western countries against the Soviet Union in 1949 — the Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls — and China in 1951 — the China Committee — and the 7 8 9 10 11 For an account of coercive measures and blockades in Ancient Times, see C. Phillipson, The International Law and the Custom of Ancient Greece and Rome (London, MacMillan, 1911), vol. II, pp. 349-384. See, for example, J. Muldoon, Popes, Lawyers, and Infidels. The Church and the Non-Christian World 1250-1550 (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1979); and S.K. Stantchev, Embargo: The Origins of an Idea and the Implications of a Policy in Europe and the Mediterranean, ca. 1100 – ca. 1500 (Michigan, University of Michigan, 2009). S.K. Stantchev, Spiritual Rationality: Papal Embargo as Cultural Practice (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2014). See John Baldwin, Masters, Princes and Merchants; the Social View of Peter the Chanter and his Circle, Vol. I, (Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Press 1970) p. 267. C.P. Vincent, The Politics of Hunger: The Allied Blockade of Germany, 1915-1919 (Athens, Ohio, Ohio University Press, 1985). 7