Provision of Peace and Right of Health in the Path of Sanctions: Threats and Opportunities

The Purposes for the formation of UN have been the provision ofpeace in the international arena and prevention of war; and this iswhat different bodies in UN are after, too. Human rights whichhave been specified in the international documents are, firstly, inline with limiting unfair affairs on the part of powerful institutionsand, secondly, after inhibiting threats which would endangerhuman’s basic rights and freedom. In this sense, sophistication ofinstitutions like the Security Council must be evaluated, in onehand, based on the objective for which they have been constituted(i.e. provision of peace) and, on the other hand, according to howthey guarantee human rights. Therefore, in case Security Councildoes not follow these two mentioned factors, its function wouldbe itself a threat to the international peace and security; and thesame holds true for any institution which is in charge of issuingsanctions. Different field studies which investigated the effects ofsanctions issued by the Security Council, the United States andthe European Union on citizens’ health have indicated that notthese sanctions violated the human rights. Instead, a number ofsmart sanctions have had no good effect on the international peaceand instead they have led to the spread of the fire of war. Thisissue is of great significance because right of health is connectedwith the right of living. In case enough drugs, appropriatetreatment and medical equipment are not provided at the proper time, both physical and mental health might be threatened and thiscan cause death of a large number of people. Considering theSecurity Council as an institution which is expected to take intoaccount the citizens’ basic rights and not to ignore its own initialobjective, the present paper was an attempt to provideexplanations for the above concepts and their relationships and toanalyze the findings of previous field studies. The paperconcluded that sanctions issued by the Security Council and theUS are potentially functioning as threats to the international peaceand so these sanctions are violating the citizens’ right of health.

Keywords:

Economic Sanction , Smart Sanction , Right of Health , International Peace