Unilateral coercive measures

General Assembly Proclaims 4 December International Day against Unilateral Coercive Measures, Elects Members to United Nations Commission on International Trade Law

Introducing that draft, Eritrea’s representative, speaking for the Group of Friends in Defense of the Charter of the United Nations, said that such measures — commonly cloaked in the misleading language of sanctions — are not instruments of justice, but “tools of political and economic compulsion”...

Expressing solidarity with Cuba and its people, Yván Gil Pinto, Minister of Popular Power for Foreign Affairs of Venezuela, said that unilateral coercive measures infringe on the sovereign and inalienable rights of States to choose their economic system without coercion. The humanitarian exceptions to these measures are a “fantasy” he said, calling for the establishment of a “safe space” free of such measures.


Of course, Yván Gil Pinto, Minister of Popular Power for Foreign Affairs of Venezuela, does not mean all unilateral coercive measures. In particular, he does not mean those internal measures used by his government. When applied internally to Venezuela, his concept of a “safe space” has a rather different meaning too. 

'From criminal hub to energy hub': Machado touts a post-dictatorship Venezuela

Venezuela is still firmly in the grip of a socialist dictatorship. But the country's popular opposition leader hopes to hasten the regime’s fall — in part by selling Venezuela’s big capitalist potential.

María Corina Machado is in hiding from the regime in Venezuela. But Thursday morning she appeared on a Zoom videoconference, hosted by the Americas Society/Council of the Americas, touting a major economic plan for post-dictatorship Venezuela.