Harms – Human Rights – Medicine

Harms – Human Rights – Medicine

Embargo denies medicine access to Cuban people

In a widely publicized 1997 report, the American Association for World Health ("AAWH") found that the embargo's arduous licensing provisions actively discouraged medical trade and commerce. n289 AAWH further reported that in some cases U.S. officials provided American firms with misleading or confusing information. n290 In addition, it reported that several licenses for legitimate medications and medical equipment were denied as "detrimental to U.S. foreign policy interests." n291 The AAWH concluded that, as a result of inaccurate or confusing information from U.S. officials, [*242] one-half of the firms they surveyed incorrectly believed that the embargo prevented all sales of medications and medical supplies to Cuba. n292

More recently, the Cuban government has issued reports in the United Nations General Assembly documenting the ways in which the U.S. embargo makes the process of obtaining medications and medical equipment unnecessarily difficult and costly. n296 Two examples include Cuba's unsuccessful attempts to purchase an anti-viral medication called Tenofovir (Viread) from the U.S. firm Gilead and Depo-Provera, a contraceptive drug, from another U.S. firm, Pfizer. Because it would have required an export license from the U.S. government, Gilead was unable to sell Tenofovir, and Cuba was forced to purchase the medication through third-parties at a significantly higher price. The Cuban government cited this as an example of the embargo's negative impact on Cuba's efforts to modernize its HIV/AIDS treatments. n297 In the Depo-Provera example, Cuba reported that, despite Cuba's attempts to purchase the drug as part of a national program associated with the United Nations Population Fund, Pfizer claimed it could not sell the product to Cuba without obtaining a number of licenses, a process which would take several months. n298 Cuba's report to the United Nations [*243] also chronicled obstacles the country faced in obtaining medical equipment from U.S. companies and subsidiaries.

Moreover, Cuba reports that the embargo's restrictions go beyond the purchase of medical equipment and medications but also includes replacement components for equipment it already possesses. n299 The country reported being denied the possibility of purchasing replacement pieces containing U.S.-made components for equipment used in its Oncology and Radiobiology Institute. n300 In another example, Cuba reported that the U.S. Treasury refused to authorize Atlantic Philanthropic, a United States NGO, from donating a molecular biology laboratory to Cuba's Nephrology Institute. This technology would have facilitated successful kidney transplants for a larger percentage of Cuban patients. n301 Additional reported examples include film for x-ray machines used to detect breast cancer, Spanish-language medical books from a U.S. conglomerate subsidiary, and U.S.-made components for respirators. n302

A policy of maintaining an arduous and at times insurmountable licensing procedure for trading health-related products with Cuba harms the health of Cuban citizens. Moreover, the waste of valuable time and the deprivation of necessary medicine and equipment do not make sense morally or politically. In a 1995 speech addressing the use of economic sanctions as a political tool, former United Nations Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali explained: "Sanctions, as is generally recognized, are a blunt instrument. They raise the ethical question of whether suffering inflicted on vulnerable groups in the target country is a legitimate means of exerting pressure on political leaders whose behaviour is unlikely to be affected by the plight of their subjects." n303

Harms – Human Rights – Sanctions Undermine Human Rights

Sanctions are human rights violations

Shagabutdinova & Berejikian, 2007 a. member of the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, MA/JD, at the University of Georgia b. Associate Professor of International Affairs, School of Public and International Affairs, at the University of Georgia [Ella Shagabutdinova & Jeffrey Berejikian, Deploying Sanctions while Protecting Human Rights: Are Humanitarian “Smart” Sanctions Effective?, Journal of Human Rights, Volume 6, Issue 1, 2007]
While the use of sanctions is permitted under the principles of international law (UN Charter, Art. 39 & 41, as well as notion of state sovereignty), 1 they often produce consequences that run counter to the obligations of governments to protect human rights. Hence, sanctions constitute violations of human rights to the extent they deny the above-mentioned fundamental basic rights and violated norms of jus cogens. Even the United Nations, often the focal point for a sanctioning effort, now acknowledges that the damage imposed by sanctions can rise to the level of human rights abuses (Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, General Comment No. 8, 1997). Similarly, the United Nations authorized a number of studies detailing humanitarian impact of sanctions and their devastating effect on human rights (Garfield 1999; Minear 1997). While some disagree that sanctions constitute human rights violations directly (e.g., Marks 1999), there is nonetheless near universal consensus on the main point: economic sanctions, even when used for humanitarian purposes, (often unintentionally) impose significant hardship on innocent populations.

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