A/HRC/30/45 and Cooperation among States in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations 13 as well as article 32 of General Assembly resolution 3281 (XXIX) stipulate that no State may use or encourage the use of economic, political or any other type of measure to coerce another State in order to obtain from it the subordination of the exercise of its sovereign right. This gives legitimacy to the position expressed by developing countries: they reject the imposition of laws and regulations with extraterritorial impact and all other forms of coercive economic measures, including unilateral sanctions, against developing countries and call for their elimination.14 35. The Vienna Declaration also calls on States to refrain from any unilateral measure not in accordance with international law or the Charter of the United Nations. Seen from the vantage point of source countries, the portent of the injunction revolves around the determination of which coercive measures effectively run counter to these provisions and which do not. The European Union Guidelines on Implementation and Evaluation of Restrictive Measures stress that “the introduction and implementation of restrictive measures must always be in accordance with international law. They must respect human rights and fundamental freedoms”.15 The guidelines mention that the decisions of the Council if the European Union in the framework of the Common Foreign and Security Policy in this respect are even subject to judicial review by the European Court of Justice.16 In the Kadi case,17 a decision by the European Council to include a person on a terrorist list was overturned by the European Court of Justice, despite the fact that this was by way of an implementation of a Security Council listing that was unappealable. The adjudication was based on a recognition that, by the standards of peremptory norms and jus cogens, the listing of the claimant violated his human rights and failed to comply with due process. Judging from this audacious precedent, one can draw comfort as to the independent mechanisms to protect targets of unilateral coercive measures from their adverse impact on human rights in the European Union context. Taking a series of recent cases where the General Court of the European Union has annulled “restrictive measures” on human rights grounds, it has been alleged, however, that immediately after annulment, the European Union will often relist the targeted company within days for different reasons.18 By contrast, in the United States, there exist limited possibilities for an individual or entity subject to an asset freeze decided by the government office in charge of economic sanctions, namely, the Office of Foreign Assets Control, to challenge such decision. 19 Thus far, there have been no reported judicial decisions in the United States reversing a designation established by the Office. B. International legal framework, including human rights law and international humanitarian law 36. The second question needs to be answered as to what guidance international law, international human rights law and humanitarian law can provide to eliminate or mitigate 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 10 General Assembly resolution 2625 (XXV), annex. See in particular the Declaration of Santa Cruz of the Group of 77 and China, paras. 239-241. See para. 9 of European Union document 11205/12 of 15 June 2012, available from www.statewatch.org/news/2012/jun/eu-council-un-sanctions-guidelines-11205-12.pdf. Ibid., paragraph 7. European Court of Justice, Yassin A. Kadi and Al Barakaat International Foundation v. Council of the European Union and Commission of the European Commission, 2008 Judgement. “Who are you calling a rogue?”, The Economist, 20 June 2015. See, for example, W.B. Hoffman, “How to Approach a new Office of Foreign Assets Control Sanctions Program”, Stetson Law Review, Vol. 27, Issue. 4 (Spring 1998), pp. 1413-1424.

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