Background

Mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the negative impact of unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights

The Special Rapporteur on the negative impact of unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights is part of the Special Procedures mechanism of the Human Rights Council. Special Rapporteurs are independent human rights experts mandated by the Council to report and provide advice from specific thematic or country-specific perspectives. Pursuant to Human Rights Council resolutions 27/21 and 45/5 and General Assembly resolution 74/154, the Special Rapporteur on the negative impact of unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights is requested in fulfilling her mandate, inter alia, to gather all information relevant to the negative impact of unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights; to study relevant trends, developments and challenges; and to make guidelines and recommendations on ways and means to prevent, minimize and redress their adverse impact on human rights; as well as to draw the attention of the Human Rights Council, the General Assembly and the High Commissioner to relevant situations and cases. 

The current Special Rapporteur on the negative impact of unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights is Professor Alena Douhan. Professor Alena Douhan took up her functions on 25 March 2020. She is a professor of International Law, the Director of the Peace Research Center at the Belarusian State University (Belarus) and Associated member of the Institute for International Law of Peace and Armed Conflict at Ruhr University Bochum. Her teaching and research interests are in the fields of international law, sanctions and human rights law, international security law, law of international organizations, international dispute settlement, and international environmental law. She has authored over 150 books and articles on various aspects of international law.

Objectives of the Sanctions Research Platform

The Special Rapporteur on the negative impact of unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights is collecting article, reports, videos and any research material and information, for the establishment of an online research platform on sanctions and human rights (Sanctions Research Platform). The Sanction Research Platform plans to be sustainable in the long-term and to be updated through a continuous data creation, collection and integration system.

The Sanction Research Platform aims to represent a independent reference tool for global data collection, research and analysis on sanctions. This research tool will provide full, free and easy access (no registration/password required) to thematic, global and country-specific information on UCM and their impact on human rights. The unique feature of the sanction research platform is that it enables user to search and access information on UCM through several categories of authors, such as: academics; research institutes and think tanks; UN agencies and human rights mechanisms; States; Non-Governmental Organizations; National Human Rights Institutions; international, regional and national Courts; other.

In addition, the Sanction Research Platform will: i) allow the user to access free information, articles, reports, statistics, court decisions and legal interpretations of international human rights law dedicated to the impact of unilateral sanctions on the enjoyment of human rights. This includes, among others: notions, types and qualifications of UCM; the impact of UCM on humanitarian aid and people living in vulnerable conditions; UCM and SDGs; secondary sanctions; over-compliance; sanctions in the cyber world; criteria for monitoring the humanitarian impact of sanctions; quantitative information on statistics and sanctions indicators; etc.; ii) strive to raise awareness on recommendations issued by independent experts and human rights mechanisms, in order to assist Civil Society Organizations, States, National human rights institutions, and United Nations partners with their implementation. Iii)  enable users to research on sanctions and human rights worldwide, and to analyse how the legal and policy approach on unilateral sanctions has evolved over the past years.

Key outcomes of the Sanction Research Platform are:

• To gather information and to raise awareness on the issues of unilateral sanctions and their impact on the  enjoyment of human rights;
• To build know-how and capacity among NGOs and relevant stakeholders regarding the issue of unilateral sanctions and their negative impact on the enjoyment of human rights;
• To foster research and to gather information through an integrated system dedicated to the topic;
• To create and enable an environment that promotes information exchange among relevant actors and contributes to strengthen their network;
• To minimize the humanitarian impact of UCM and to provide NGOs and relevant stakeholders with a reference tool for information sharing and data collection;
• To raise awareness on recommendations coming from human rights mechanisms and relevant actors and to support States, National Human Rights Institutions, Civil Society Organizations, and United Nations partners with their implementation.

Scope of the study and call for submissions:

The Special Rapporteur would like to invite all interested individuals and organizations working on issues related to the impact of unilateral sanctions, including experts, academics and research institutes, civil society organizations and all stakeholders, international and regional organizations, human rights bodies, national human rights institutions, journalists, archivists individuals and any relevant actors, to provide any research material useful for the preparation of the Sanctions Research Platform.

In particular, the Sanction Research Platform would collect any information related to the impact of sanctions emanating by: i) academic publications; ii) UN and human rights mechanisms documents documents of other International (IGOs) and Regional Organizations; iii) reports and documents of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs); iv) reports and documents from governments and national human rights institutions; v) decisions of international, regional and national courts; vi) a page collecting specific information on cases, including SR UCM communications and NGOs public information on specific cases ; vii) link to other databases and websites; vii) videos, viii) other.

While all submissions are welcome, it would be greatly appreciated if the submissions can focus on one or more of the following thematic issues:

i) economic sanctions; ii) sanctions of the UN Security Council; targeted sanctions; iii) impact of sanctions on human rights, including quantitative and qualitative analysis; cross-cutting issues related to sanctions; iv) over-compliance; v) statistics; etc.).

The Special Rapporteur on the negative impact of unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights thank you for your inputs