The United States’ breaching of the Iranian people’s right to health and its legal liability in Donald Trump’s administration*

ABSTRACT

Several studies on the consequences of sanctions show that they have the potential to drastically harm ordinary people’s health and widely affect human rights standards in the target countries. The Right to Health (RTH) is a fundamental human right, and international law requires States to honour it in any situation. The United States (US) is a treaty party or signatory to a number of universal human rights treaties which codify the RTH as a fundamental right, along with the right to life. Additionally, the erga omnes nature of the RTH requires the US to rectify its sanctions regime. In this article, applying a descriptive-analytic method, it is argued that the Trump administration’s policy of pursuing ‘maximum pressure’ and reinstatement of fatal sanctions against Iran as of May 2018 violated the Iranian people’s basic RTH. This implies that the US is internationally liable for what the Iranian people and State experienced due to these sanctions. This violation has continued during Joseph Biden’s administration as of July 2021.

KEYWORDS:

• Legal liability
• Right to Health (RTH)
• US sanctions
• Iran
• erga omnes

Acknowledgments

Thanks to the Administration of the University of Isfahan for providing the facilities and encouragement to accomplish this research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. This is the case in relation to Iran’s nuclear case, according to Security Council Resolution 2231 and subsequent positive reports by the International Atomic Energy Agency (International Atomic Energy Agency 2020).

2. On 27 February 2020, the Swiss Humanitarian Trade Arrangement (SHTA), a payment mechanism designed to enable humanitarian goods to be delivered to Iran, was created. The SHTA was developed by Switzerland in close cooperation with the relevant authorities in the USA and in Iran, as well as with selected Swiss banks and companies (State Secretariat for Economic Affairs SECO 2020).

3. On February 14, 2019, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told CBS News, “Things are much worse for the Iranian people [with the US sanctions], and we are convinced that will lead the Iranian people to rise up and change the behavior of the regime.” (CBS Evening News 2019)

4. Iranian health authorities listed some critical drugs which faced severe shortage in Iranian market since May 2018: Cyclogest 200/progestron, Amiodarone, Insulin injection, Albumin, Aminophyline, Furosemide, Desfonac, Deferoxamine, Seroflo, Atrovent, spray seretide, lomustine, cetraben, Ziferon, Mabthera, Madopar, Warfarin, Valproate Sodium, Xeloda, Lisinopril, Symbicort, Cetrotide, livergol, zaditen, BioGaia, Epidermolysis Bullosa (EB) drugs. Sogol Setayesh and Ken Mackey in their research article listed drugs shortages caused by sanctions. The shortages related to Obama’s sanctions against Iran, however as the author examined by searching in Isfahan pharmacies, it is true for Trump’s sanctions against Iran as well (Setayesh and Mackey 2016, 8–9).

5. President Biden in a letter to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres on the first day of his presidency, said, “The United States intends to remain a member of the World Health Organisation.” (The Economic Times 2021)

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ali Omidi

Ali Omidi is a senior lecturer of Public International Law and an Associate Professor of International Relations in the Department of Political Science, Faculty of Administrative Sciences and Economics at the University of Isfahan in Iran since 2004. He is the author of two books on international law in Persian: International Law from Theory to Practice (2015) and A Comparative Review of Regional Organisations: ECO, ASEAN, and SAARC (2009).