Statement by the Permanent Representative of Brazil to the United Nations, Ambassador Ronaldo Costa Filho, at the UNSC meeting on General issues relating to sanctions: preventing their humanitarian and unintended consequences - February 7th, 2022

Mr. President,

Brazil expresses its appreciation to Russia for organizing a debate on sanctions and their humanitarian or unintended consequences. I would also like to thank the briefers for their insightful presentations.

The UN Charter provides the Security Council with a set of instruments to maintain international peace and security, sanctions being one of them. When the situation on the ground calls for enforcement action from the Council, sanctions are alternatives to the use of armed force. As any coercive measure, however, they will have unintended consequences.

With 14 sanction regimes in force and nearly 1500 listings to date, one might wonder whether a measure that should be of last resort became the preferred choice to deal with intractable crises. One might also wonder whether the current criteria for imposing sanctions are still limited to the maintenance of peace and security or whether, in some cases, they are going beyond that objective.

Sanctions can be legitimate and effective when they are multilaterally created, strategically targeted and designed to have minimal impact on the civilian population. As a measure of last resort, they should follow the exhaustion of diplomatic solutions and be part of a comprehensive strategy to overcome the crisis. After all, security measures alone cannot adequately solve the overwhelming majority of the situations under the Council's agenda.

Mr. President,

The Security Council came a long way in improving its sanction regimes, with the transition to targeted sanctions, the creation of humanitarian exemptions and the establishment of monitoring mechanisms through panels of experts. Despite the progress to minimize the negative impact of sanctions, there are still many reports of their unintended consequences to humanitarian assistance. For this reason, Brazil encourages the Council to continue its work to adjust the sanctions framework, so that they effectively minimize human suffering, rather than accentuate it.  

First, sanctions should be limited in their scope and temporal elements, preferably with the inclusion of sunset clauses in their mandates. Sanction regimes that last for years are warning signs of either their limited effectiveness for that particular situation, or the lack of additional tools to address it.

Second, when designing or renewing sanction regimes, there should be efforts to prepare assessment reports with the potential humanitarian impacts of a given measure. There should be better monitoring of the socio-economic and humanitarian consequences of sanctions. 

Third, both the listing criteria and the conditions for lifting the sanctions should be clearly established. Clear and well-defined benchmarks for easing sanctions are also ways to measure progress and signal the temporary nature of the restrictions.

Fourth, while recognizing the specificity of each sanction regime, there needs to be greater consistency in humanitarian exemptions. The humanitarian carve-outs in Somalia’s and Afghanistan’s sanction regimes are good examples that could be replicated to other situations. Humanitarian actors must be able to provide assistance to civilians in need. If they are not able to perform humanitarian and impartial relief actions due to over compliance or the criminalization of their activities, the most vulnerable will be the first ones to endure the consequences. This is particularly relevant now, when COVID-19 increases the vulnerability of the population.

Mr. President,

Brazil has focused its comments on sanctions imposed by the United Nations. This choice in no way means that we are not concerned with the dire humanitarian impacts of unilateral coercive measures. It rather means that we chose to focus on ways to improve measures that the UN Charter allows and that international law does not proscribe.

I would like to conclude with a question for further reflection. In increasingly complex scenarios, where armed conflicts derive from a multitude of structural drivers, how can we ensure the effectiveness of sanctions in promoting sustainable peace when their humanitarian consequences are still an afterthought? For Brazil, the negative impact of sanctions to the civilian population should be at the core of any assessment on the appropriateness of imposing sanctions to a given situation, as they cannot generate more harm than they were intended to prevent.

Thank you.