A/HRC/31/82 Charter of the United Nations that create obstacles to trade”; the question remained, however, whether all unilateral coercive measures should be stopped for not complying with international law or whether some complied while others did not. The former view was supported by the Declaration on the Principles of International Law Concerning Friendly Relations and Cooperation among States in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations, while the second seemed to tally with the guidelines on implementation and evaluation of restrictive measures of the European Union, which stressed that “the introduction and implementation of restrictive measures must always be in accordance with international law”. Which criteria were actually used to determine whether a specific measure complied with international law, and what the consequence would be when a measure was found to be compliant but had egregious consequences for human rights, was still unclear. Determining the seriousness of the said consequences was, for the mandate, closely interrelated with the issue of legality. 16. The Special Rapporteur pointed out that the issue of legality was not yet ripe for a solution that could open the way for a ground-breaking decision that took the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe 1975 as a template.1 17. The Special Rapporteur stated that Article 55 (c) of the Charter of the United Nations called for “universal” respect of human rights, meaning that all States should observe them in their domestic affairs as well as on the territory of other States through their own unilateral coercive measures. In its resolution 60/251, the General Assembly made the same point in deciding that the Human Rights Council should be “responsible for promoting universal respect for the protection of all human rights”. As far back as 1981, the Human Rights Committee had stated that “it would be unconscionable to so interpret the responsibility under article 2 of the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights as to permit a State party to perpetrate violations of the Covenant on the territory of another State, which violations it could not perpetrate on its own territory”. 2 A number of source States were nonetheless of the opinion that possible “violations of human rights on the territory of another State” did not fall within the mandate of the Human Rights Council. 18. In the light of the described recent advances and remaining challenges, the Special Rapporteur advocated for a pragmatic approach, starting with the simpler challenges before moving on to more conceptual issues. Firstly, he suggested that, given the lack of clarity in the data currently available, the establishment of a “clearing house” or registry for unilateral coercive measures within the United Nations be considered. To that end, the Human Rights Council would need to request the Secretary-General to establish and maintain a universal non-discriminatory registry, similar to the one established by the General Assembly in its resolution 46/36, for conventional arms. Secondly, he advocated for the formulation of parameters for an objective assessment of the adverse impact of unilateral coercive measures on the most vulnerable groups. Thirdly, he proposed reconciling the progress made in some source States with universality principles, and persuading other States to sign on, whether in terms of United Nations guidelines or in the form of appeal and review mechanisms, and establishing a reality check. Finally, he called for global coherence to unilateral coercive measures in a way that would effectively reduce their adverse impact on human rights and promote consistency with Security Council multilateral sanctions. 1 Under section VI on “Non-intervention in internal affairs” of the Final Act, States pledged “in all circumstances [to] refrain from any other act of military, or of political, economic or other coercion designed to subordinate to their own interest the exercise by any other participating State of the rights inherent in its sovereignty and thus to secure advantages of any kind” 2 A/36/40, Sergio Euben Lopez Burgos v. Uruguay, communication no. R.12/52, para. 12.3. 5