In a post on his X account on August 22, Esmaeil Baqaei said Washington’s use of secondary sanctions against foreign banks, businesses and airports has no basis in international law and violates the principle of sovereign equality among UN member states.
“The United States’ declaration of new economic sanctions on Iran is far more than continued unlawful ‘economic warfare’ against a single country. It is an assertion of extraterritorial sovereignty over every independent Member State of the United Nations,” he wrote.
“No State may lawfully compel foreign banks, enterprises, or airports - each subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of its own sovereign - to renounce lawful commerce with a third State,” Baqaei said.
“Such secondary sanctions find no foundation in international law. They violate the principle of sovereign equality enshrined in Article 2(1) of the UN Charter and breach the customary prohibition on intervention affirmed by the International Court of Justice in the Nicaragua case. Economic coercion designed to force a sovereign State to alter its lawful policy choices constitutes an outright internationally wrongful act,” the spokesman added.
“When combined with a naval blockade amounting to military aggression, these demands reduce the sovereignty of all other States to something provisional, conditional, and revocable at the whim of another power. Compliance purchases no immunity or respect; it merely concedes that one’s banks, enterprises, and airports operate only under a foreign license,” he stated.
“The end result would be the complete erosion of sovereignty as the foundational basis of the UN-based inter-State system, and a recipe for an abysmal return to full-scale classic colonialism,” Baqaei wrote.