IRNA – The United States' unilateral, extraterritorial sanctions are in contradiction with the principles of international law, including territoriality, non-intervention, free trade, equal sovereignty and democracy; because the sanctions target companies, banks and traders in other countries, cause intervention in internal affairs of third countries and obstruct free trade, Iran's Vice President for Legal Affairs wrote in an article.

In an article published in daily Persian-language "Iran", Laya Joneidi the Vice President of Iran for Legal Affairs said that sanctions are be followed by Human Rights violation when they block a nation's general and fundamental needs like food, medicine and medical equipment and financial transactions.

She went on to elaborate that the International Court of Justice, for that reason, ordered to stop implementation of sanctions on those goods before hearing the main case filed by Iran against the United States.

The coronavirus outbreak and the need for medical equipment and medicine to fight against the virus, has revealed the severe inhumane, and of course, illegitimate and illegal nature of the sanctions, Joneidi added.

The official also said: "The outbreak indicated that the sanctions, in addition to violation of the aforementioned principles, inevitably infringe fundamental human rights and other principles like the principle of cooperation to control and contain such decease; the principles have been mentioned in the United Nations charter and World Health Organization's documents."

Sanctions endanger health system of the target country in two ways: first, medical companies are unwilling to provide those countries with the required medical equipment and medicine for fear of being deprived of the market; second, even if some companies provide the target country with their demands, they cannot be paid because of financial blockade, as said by Joneidi.

She stressed that the United States is in violation of its special commitments to cooperate in controlling contagious deceases and this fact should be a basis for international financial institutions, including International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, to ignore unilateral sanctions in their consideration of loan requests.

A good example of such fair behavior, according to the legal official, was the Luxemburg court of appeals voting to release Iran's bonds money in dollars.