Human Rights and Unilateral Coercive Measures

A/RES/63/179View PDF

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

A Resolution of the General Assembly, under agenda item 64b Human rights questions, including alternative approaches for improving the effective enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms, published in 2009.

What else is in this group?

42 documents · 1997–2025

Newer documents in this group exist (latest: 2025).

Year	Symbol	Title	Word length	Text similarity
2025	A/RES/80/209	Human rights and unilateral coercive measures	3,078	–
2024	A/RES/79/167	Human rights and unilateral coercive measures	3,310	–
2023	A/RES/78/202	Human rights and unilateral coercive measures	3,401	–
2023	A/HRC/RES/54/15	Human rights and unilateral coercive measures	1,512	–
2023	A/RES/77/214	Human rights and unilateral coercive measures	3,320	–

This group bundles related documents that are not individually ordered.

Which reports were submitted under this mandate?

1 report · 2009

Year	Symbol	Title		Mandate resolution
2009	A/64/219	Human rights and unilateral coercive measures report of the Secretary-General		A/RES/63/179

What’s in this document?

15 operative paragraphs

Urges all States to cease adopting or implementing any unilateral measures not in accordance with international law, the Charter of the United Nations and the norms and principles governing peaceful relations among States, in particular those of a coercive nature with all their extraterritorial effects, which create obstacles to trade relations among States, thus impeding the full realization of the rights set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights¹⁵ and other international human rights instruments, in particular the right of individuals and peoples to development;

¹⁵Resolution 217 A (III).

Also urges all States not to adopt any unilateral measures not in accordance with international law and the Charter that impede the full achievement of economic and social development by the population of the affected countries, in particular children and women, that hinder their well-being and that create obstacles to the full enjoyment of their human rights, including the right of everyone to a standard of living adequate for his or her health and well-being and his or her right to food, medical care and the necessary social services, as well as to ensure that food and medicine are not used as tools for political pressure;

Strongly objects to the extraterritorial nature of those measures which, in addition, threaten the sovereignty of States, and in this context calls upon all Member States to neither recognize those measures nor to apply them, as well as to take administrative or legislative measures, as appropriate, to counteract the extraterritorial applications or effects of unilateral coercive measures;

Condemns the continued unilateral application and enforcement by certain Powers of unilateral coercive measures, and rejects those measures with all their extraterritorial effects as being tools for political or economic pressure against any country, in particular against developing countries, adopted with a view to preventing those countries from exercising their right to decide, of their own free will, their own political, economic and social systems, and because of the negative effects of those measures on the realization of all the human rights of vast sectors of their populations, in particular children, women and the elderly;

Reaffirms that essential goods such as food and medicines should not be used as tools for political coercion and that under no circumstances should people be deprived of their own means of subsistence and development;

Calls upon Member States that have initiated such measures to abide by the principles of international law, the Charter, the declarations of the United Nations and world conferences and relevant resolutions and to commit themselves to their obligations and responsibilities arising from the international human rights instruments to which they are party by revoking such measures at the earliest possible time;

Reaffirms, in this context, the right of all peoples to self-determination, by virtue of which they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development;

Recalls that, according to the Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Cooperation among States in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations, contained in the annex to General Assembly resolution 2625 (XXV) of 24 October 1970, and the relevant principles and provisions contained in the Charter of Economic Rights and Duties of States proclaimed by the Assembly in its resolution 3281 (XXIX), in particular article 32 thereof, no State may use or encourage the use of economic, political or any other type of measures to coerce another State in order to obtain from it the subordination of the exercise of its sovereign rights and to secure from it advantages of any kind;

Rejects all attempts to introduce unilateral coercive measures, and urges the Human Rights Council to take fully into account the negative impact of those measures, including through the enactment of national laws and their extraterritorial application which are not in conformity with international law, in its task concerning the implementation of the right to development;

Requests the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, in discharging her functions relating to the promotion, realization and protection of the right to development and bearing in mind the continuing impact of unilateral coercive measures on the population of developing countries, to give priority to the present resolution in her annual report to the General Assembly;

Underlines that unilateral coercive measures are one of the major obstacles to the implementation of the Declaration on the Right to Development,12 and in this regard calls upon all States to avoid the unilateral imposition of economic coercive measures and the extraterritorial application of domestic laws which run counter to the principles of free trade and hamper the development of developing countries, as recognized by the Intergovernmental Group of Experts on the Right to Development;

Recognizes that in the Declaration of Principles adopted at the first phase of the World Summit on the Information Society, held in Geneva from 10 to 12 December 2003,¹⁶ States were strongly urged to avoid and refrain from any unilateral measure in building the information society;

¹⁶A/C.2/59/3, annex, chap. I, sect. A.

Supports the invitation of the Human Rights Council to all special rapporteurs and existing thematic mechanisms of the Council in the field of economic, social and cultural rights to pay due attention, within the scope of their respective mandates, to the negative impact and consequences of unilateral coercive measures;

Requests the Secretary-General to bring the present resolution to the attention of all Member States, to continue to collect their views and information on the implications and negative effects of unilateral coercive measures on their populations and to submit an analytical report thereon to the General Assembly at its sixty-fourth session, while reiterating once again the need to highlight the practical and preventive measures in this respect;

Decides to examine the question on a priority basis at its sixty-fourth session under the sub-item entitled “Human rights questions, including alternative approaches for improving the effective enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms”.

Human Rights and Unilateral Coercive Measures

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