{"id":29271,"date":"2026-07-13T14:00:20","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T12:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/?p=29271"},"modified":"2026-07-11T12:27:38","modified_gmt":"2026-07-11T10:27:38","slug":"trumps-sanctions-on-cuba-are-a-crime-against-humanity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/trumps-sanctions-on-cuba-are-a-crime-against-humanity\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s Sanctions on Cuba Are a Crime Against Humanity"},"content":{"rendered":"

Can economic sanctions constitute crimes against humanity (CAH)? The proposition may appear audacious to those who deny<\/a> that economy can be wielded<\/a> as a weapon<\/a> of aggression<\/a>. Yet emerging legal doctrine recognises that deliberately imposed measures attacking civilian livelihoods constitute an international crime.<\/p>\n

A blatant example is US President Trump\u2019s Executive Order<\/a> of 1 May 2026 (May EO) targeting<\/a> Cuba under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA<\/a>). On its face, the May EO \u2018expands upon<\/a>\u2019 Executive Order 14380 of 29 January 2026 (January EO<\/a>) in addressing the presumed \u2018Cuban threat\u2019 to US national security. However, whereas the January EO threatened<\/a> third states with secondary unilateral coercive measures (UCMs), colloquially \u2018sanctions\u2019, in the form of tariffs, the May EO threatens<\/a> to block the property of any foreign natural or legal person, including foreign financial institutions, engaging in virtually any economic activity in Cuba or with the Cuban Government.<\/p>\n

The rationale is manifest: the US Supreme Court\u2019s ruling in Learning Resources, Inc. v Trump<\/em> denied<\/a> Trump the power to impose tariffs under the IEEPA against sovereign states without congressional approval\u2014thereby rendering his initial threat to deprive<\/a> Cuba of oil groundless under US federal law. The White House therefore reformulated<\/a> its menace, replacing tariffs with asset \u2018blocking\u2019, and sovereign states with persons, to achieve<\/a> the same outcome: regime change.<\/p>\n

The two EOs nevertheless share two essential characteristics: they prima facie<\/em> violate customary international law and constitute CAH, such that third states are bound to breach them. Establishing this obligation requires first clarifying why the US UCM regime against Cuba is unlawful.<\/p>\n

Prima Facie<\/em><\/strong> (Il)legality of US UCMs Under International Law<\/strong><\/p>\n

Former UN Special Rapporteur on the negative impact of UCMs on the enjoyment of human rights, Alena Douhan defines<\/a> (\u00b6 5) UCMs as economic, financial, political or other State-oriented measures imposed on states, individuals or entities to alter policy, subordinate sovereign rights, secure advantages, or coerce and punish. Their distinguishing feature is that they lack UN Security Council authorisation and are prima facie <\/em>illegal<\/a> insofar as they infringe customary international law including the principles of state sovereignty<\/a> (\u00b6 19), non-intervention<\/a> and peoples\u2019 right to self-determination<\/a> (\u00b6 6).<\/p>\n

The crucial point here is their combined effect. \u2018Comprehensive\u2019 UCMs target entire sectors of the sanctioned economy, whereas \u2018targeted\u2019 UCMs focus on persons or bodies through asset freezes, travel bans and funding prohibitions. Yet, as Moret<\/a>, Hofer<\/a> and Jazairy<\/a> (\u00b6 16) note, \u2018targeted\u2019 measures may produce \u2018comprehensive\u2019 effects when those persons or bodies play a vital role in the sanctioned economy. \u2018Secondary\u2019 UCMs then amplify that effect by pressuring third states and private entities to comply with open-ended diktats regardless of their domestic or international legality, thereby inducing<\/a> (\u00b6 17) overcompliance and further isolating the targeted state.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s May EO is therefore a mixed instrument. Although the blocking threat appears directed at persons, the prohibited conduct broadly concerns foreign economic activities in Cuba, extending from energy to tourism and mining following the US Office of Foreign Assets Control\u2019s updates on 4<\/a> and 11<\/a> June 2026. This reinforces the existing blockade, including restrictions<\/a> on vessels trading with Cuba and threats<\/a> of lawsuits against non-US companies for \u2018trafficking\u2019 in nationalised property. The May EO is thus best understood as a de facto<\/em> \u2018comprehensive\u2019 UCM package with \u2018targeted\u2019 and \u2018secondary\u2019 elements.<\/p>\n

The decisive issue, however, is the purpose and humanitarian cost of the US UCM regime against Cuba. Even before Trump\u2019s EOs, the blockade had caused<\/a> a neuropathy epidemic between 1991 and 1994 and contributed<\/a> to syringe shortages during COVID-19, despite Cuba developing<\/a> its own vaccine and deploying<\/a> doctors abroad. The Trump administration\u2019s 2026 EOs have since attacked<\/a> the island\u2019s energy infrastructure, triggering hospital blackouts<\/a>, water shortages<\/a>, scarcity of food<\/a>, sharply rising<\/a> infant mortality and falling<\/a> child cancer survival rates.<\/p>\n

This calamity reflects a longstanding US objective. As noted<\/a> by US diplomat Lester Mallory in a 1960 memorandum, UCMs against Cuba aimed to make \u2018the greatest inroads in denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government\u2019. This objective was reiterated in the early 1990s by Congressman Robert Torricelli, who boasted<\/a> that his bill would \u2018wreak havoc on that island\u2019 and \u2018strangle<\/a>\u2019 its government. The nexus<\/em> between the systematic acts, intent and consequences has therefore long been evident.<\/p>\n

The IEEPA nevertheless stands apart from most other US UCM statutes. Unlike the better-known Global Magnitsky Act\u2014which influenced<\/a> the European Union\u2019s (EU) \u2018Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime\u2019 and targets alleged human rights violators through \u2018targeted\u2019 UCMs with limited<\/a> (\u00b6 6) due process guarantees\u2014the IEEPA requires no \u2018human rights\u2019 rationale, empowering the US President to adopt UCMs based on a broadly construed national emergency. Recent EOs promulgated under the IEEPA thus deter third states and persons from economic activity in Cuba by threatening their access to the US market, thereby forcing economic withdrawal and deepening imposed destitution. Yet, understanding why this amounts to CAH requires tracing the evolution of legal doctrine on \u2018comprehensive\u2019 UCMs since the 1990s.<\/p>\n

UCMs Under International Human Rights Law and International Criminal Law<\/strong><\/p>\n

Since the mid-1990s, expert views on UCMs have shifted from condemning<\/a> interferences with state sovereignty to assessing<\/a> their impact on human rights, paving the way for international criminal scrutiny. This early link between \u2018comprehensive\u2019 UCMs and international crimes was grounded in socioeconomic rights: General Comment No. 8<\/a> of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1997), for instance, clarified how such measures impaired rights to food, healthcare, education and work, including by affecting pharmaceuticals, sanitation supplies, food quality, and clean drinking water.<\/p>\n

This raises the central question: how should conduct that knowingly subjects civilians to indigence and illness, against the backdrop of the US UCM regime\u2019s stated objective, be classified? As corroborated<\/a> by the UN Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in North Korea (\u00b6 78), such conduct falls within the definition<\/a> of CAH in Article 7 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), including<\/a> \u2018murder\u2019, \u2018persecution\u2019 and \u2018other inhumane acts [\u2026] intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health\u2019, where committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population, with knowledge of that attack.<\/p>\n

The above framework produced two doctrinal approaches. A more \u2018conservative\u2019 position, associated<\/a> with Nigel White, emphasised US state responsibility and reparations for violations of Cuban citizens\u2019 socioeconomic rights, while avoiding international criminal law. By contrast, Alfred De Zayas<\/a> (\u00b6 36) and William Schabas<\/a> drew<\/a> on the intent behind \u2018comprehensive\u2019 UCMs and the foreseeability of their deadly effects, arguing<\/a> that measures causing starvation and disease could amount to CAH\u2014with De Zayas comparing<\/a> them to \u2018medieval sieges\u2019.<\/p>\n

Despite the scepticism expressed<\/a> by Bjorge, Akande and Akhavan, Cuba\u2019s case better supports De Zayas and Schabas. The US policy of engineered immiseration, directed against large sections of Cuba\u2019s civilian population to overthrow their government despite its documented<\/a> human toll, satisfies the contextual elements of CAH, while the hampering<\/a> of humanitarian aid further evidences the attack\u2019s systematic character.<\/p>\n

This broader interpretation of CAH has also gained diplomatic traction\u2014informing, for instance, Venezuela\u2019s February 2020 referral<\/a> to the Office of the Prosecutor of the ICC on whether US UCMs amounted to CAH. Accountability remains unlikely, given ICC structures<\/a> and Venezuela\u2019s inability or unwillingness to challenge the Prosecutor\u2019s cursory assessment<\/a> before the Pre-Trial Chamber following the US abduction<\/a> of President Maduro. Even so, debates on the International Law Commission\u2019s (ILC) Draft Articles on Prevention and Punishment of Crimes Against Humanity suggest that UCMs now warrant closer scrutiny under the CAH framework.<\/p>\n

UCMs and the ILC\u2019s Draft Articles<\/strong><\/p>\n

The ILC\u2019s Draft Articles on CAH were first published<\/a> in 2019, coinciding with De Zayas and Schabas\u2019 participation<\/a> in the International Seminar on UCMs. Yet, despite exploring contested<\/a> questions such as \u2018political offences\u2019 vis-\u00e0-vis extradition<\/a> and \u2018gender\u2019 as a social construct<\/a> forming the basis for \u2018persecution\u2019, the Draft Articles did not tackle the relationship between CAH and economic policy.<\/p>\n

This omission was noted<\/a> in Iran\u2019s initial submissions, which argued for specific reference to \u2018comprehensive\u2019 UCMs under Draft Article 2, defining CAH. Like De Zayas and Schabas, Iranian representatives argued<\/a> that such measures, when applied systematically and on a widespread basis, deprive civilians of food and medicine and thereby intentionally inflict death. Notably, representatives of Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, North Korea, Russia and China later joined<\/a> their Iranian counterparts in reiterating this position at the Preparatory Committee for the UN Diplomatic Conference of Plenipotentiaries on Prevention and Punishment of Crimes against Humanity, convened in January 2026.<\/p>\n

Irrespective of the (geo)politics behind this convergence, the alignment of two Permanent Members of the Security Council on the criminal nature of \u2018comprehensive\u2019 UCMs may shape future UN agendas and resolutions<\/a>. More importantly, the ILC\u2019s commentaries affirm<\/a> that the \u2018interdiction\u2019 of CAH is a jus cogens<\/em> norm: states should therefore not \u2018merely\u2019 prohibit CAH; they must act to prevent them.<\/p>\n

The question is therefore plain: if preventing \u2018comprehensive\u2019 UCMs against Cuba is a binding obligation, how should our governments react to Trump\u2019s EOs?<\/p>\n

The Erga Omnes<\/em> Obligation to Breach the Blockade<\/strong><\/p>\n

As the ILC\u2019s Draft Conclusions on Identification and Legal Consequences of Peremptory Norms of General International Law confirm<\/a>, states are required to \u2018bring an end through lawful means\u2019 to any serious breach of a jus cogens<\/em> obligation and must not \u2018recognise as lawful\u2019 a situation created by such a breach. The logical conclusion is reflected<\/a> in the January 2026 Briefing Paper (1) of the International Court of Justice: the prevention of CAH constitutes an obligation erga omnes<\/em>. Applied to \u2018comprehensive\u2019 UCMs, this means that third states should not only refrain from supporting the bloqueo<\/em>, but also actively try to breach it.<\/p>\n

At the time of writing, only Russia had openly \u2018violated<\/a>\u2019 the January EO, while the conduct of Chinese<\/a> and Turkish<\/a> companies was arguably in contravention of the May EO. Regardless of the reasons behind US inaction in relation to these \u2018transgressions\u2019, the EOs have continued to daunt third governments\u2014particularly in Latin America<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In this regard, the EU\u2019s position had been largely compliant with international norms since the EU-Cuba Political Dialogue and Cooperation Agreement (PDCA) of 2016, which envisaged<\/a> inserting Cuban enterprises \u2018into international markets\u2019 and \u2018investments\u2019, while Council Regulation No 2271\/96 facilitated this agreement by allowing<\/a> European companies to recover damages caused by US extraterritorial UCMs, including the bloqueo<\/em>. Yet the European Parliament\u2019s (EP) resolution of 21 January 2026 aligned with Trump\u2019s subsequent January EO by declaring<\/a> that Cuba \u2018cannot continue to benefit from privileged cooperation with the EU, such as under the PDCA\u2019. Instead of heeding calls<\/a> made by UN human rights experts since January 2026 and upholding the agreement, the EP doubled down<\/a> on its US-aligned position in its resolution of 18 June 2026, demanding further \u2018targeted\u2019 UCMs against Cuban entities, including the \u2018leadership\u2019 of the state-run Grupo de Administraci\u00f3n Empresarial<\/em> (GAE). Given GAE\u2019s weight<\/a> in the Cuban economy, such a measure would arguably be de facto<\/em> \u2018comprehensive\u2019, especially when operating in tandem with the bloqueo<\/em>.<\/p>\n

It is worth noting that these resolutions are not binding. However, as the Trump administration threatens<\/a> military aggression and progressively expands the bloqueo<\/em>, European lawmakers should consider not only third states\u2019 obligation to breach the blockade, but also potential<\/a> criminal liability under the \u2018other inhumane acts\u2019 heading of CAH\u2014regardless of geopolitical alignments and Washington\u2019s power rhetoric<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Concluding Remarks<\/strong><\/p>\n

Despite the growing consensus<\/a> on the looming demise of the liberal international legal order, the socioeconomic foundations of settled international law remain. Preventing CAH in the form of economic aggression is therefore not only an obligation on paper: it is a practicable humanitarian policy.<\/p>\n

Third states therefore face a historic choice amid the humanitarian catastrophe imposed on Cuba: will they defy an illicit decree to end a systematic assault on civilians, or will they participate in the suffocation of 10 million people? The answer will not only determine Cuba\u2019s survival, but also the meaning of sovereignty and self-determination in the emerging legal order.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Can economic sanctions constitute crimes against humanity (CAH)? The proposition may appear audacious to those who deny that economy can be wielded as a weapon of aggression. Yet emerging legal doctrine recognises that deliberately imposed measures attacking civilian livelihoods constitute an international crime. A blatant example is US President Trump\u2019s Executive Order of 1 May […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6639],"tags":[5117,5678],"authors":[7940],"article-categories":[6000],"doi":[],"class_list":["post-29271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crimes-against-humanity","tag-sanctions","authors-aytekin-kaan-kurtul","article-categories-article"],"acf":{"subline":"How Should Third States React?"},"meta_box":{"doi":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29271"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29271\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29275,"href":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29271\/revisions\/29275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29271"},{"taxonomy":"authors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/authors?post=29271"},{"taxonomy":"article-categories","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article-categories?post=29271"},{"taxonomy":"doi","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/doi?post=29271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}