A/HRC/39/54 Zimbabwe 12. On 2 March 2018, the United States of America extended its sanctions regime on Zimbabwe until 2019.5 The European Union had already on 12 February 2018 renewed its restrictive measures on Zimbabwe for another year. The Special Rapporteur expresses concern that sanctions were applied to certain politicians in Zimbabwe during the national elections in July 2018 as an unnecessary coercive measure that negatively affected the right of Zimbabweans to choose their own political future. IV. The case for a draft United Nations declaration and guidelines on sanctions and human rights 13. In his previous report to the Human Rights Council, the Special Rapporteur proposed, inter alia, elements of a draft General Assembly declaration on unilateral coercive measures and the rule of law (see A/HRC/36/44, annex, appendix II). In addition to a series of basic principles regarding unilateral sanctions, the draft text included “universally/generally accepted rules of behaviour” to be applied by States during the transitional period preceding the abolition and elimination of unilateral sanctions, with a view to mitigating their adverse human rights consequences. The Special Rapporteur wishes to clarify here the contents and scope of certain of the accepted rules of behaviour that the General Assembly should reaffirm. That is in response to the demand formulated by the Human Rights Council in its resolution 37/21, requesting the Special Rapporteur, “taking into account the views of Member States, to identify a set of elements to be considered, as appropriate, in the preparation of a draft United Nations declaration on the negative impact of unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights, and to submit those elements to the Human Rights Council in his next report”. Further to the request he sent to all Member States for comment on 10 May, the Special Rapporteur appeals to interested States to engage on the issue during the interactive dialogue for the present report. The updated elements of the draft declaration are set out in the annex to the present report. Human rights impact assessments of sanctions 14. Among the elements of the draft declaration, is the rule that, without prejudice to the standing of unilateral coercive measures, or lack thereof, in regard to international law, a human rights impact assessment is to be conducted before sanctions are applied (and as long as sanctions remain in force), formulated as follows: “The parties implementing unilateral sanctions are under an obligation to conduct a transparent human rights impact assessment of the measures envisaged, and to monitor on a regular basis the effects of implementation of the measures, including as regards their adverse effects on human rights” (see A/HRC/36/44, annex, appendix II, para. 13 (a)). 15. Human rights impact assessments in general are instruments for examining policies, legislation, programmes and projects to identify and measure their effects on human rights. 6 The use of comprehensive human rights impact assessments should always be a prerequisite in the design of sanctions measures, all the more so since international sanctions have repeatedly been identified as triggering adverse effects on human rights. 7 They should be conducted by the relevant authorities of the State designing a sanctions regime, but could also be conducted by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and international organizations, especially in cases where the responsible State(s) fail(s) to conduct such an assessment. 5 6 7 See www.federalregister.gov/documents/2018/03/05/2018-04628/continuation-of-the-nationalemergency-with-respect-to-zimbabwe. See Nordic Trust Fund and World Bank Group, “Human rights impact assessments: a review of the literature, differences with other forms of assessments and relevance for development” (2013). For selected examples of the adverse human rights impacts of sanctions, see, for example, A/70/345, paras. 10–47. 5