The United Nations General Assembly approved this Thursday by an overwhelming majority to condemn the United States economic blockade of Cuba for the 31st consecutive year. Of the 193 members of the organization, 187 voted in favor, two against (the US and Israel) and one, Ukraine, abstained.
So more than the final count, similar to that of recent years (there were the same number of yeses in 2019 and two less, 185, last year), it has turned out to know the identity of the text’s detractors. The rejection of the United States, which imposed the blockade on Cuba in 1960, was taken for granted. Israel, which seems to reciprocate Washington’s full support in its war against Hamas, aligned itself completely against the proposition. The abstention of Ukraine, a country also at war that last week abstained from an Assembly resolution for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza, stood out in the sea of green votes shown on the Assembly voting screen.
The Cuban Foreign Minister, Bruno Rodríguez, urged the organization’s plenary before the vote to support “reason and justice”, the UN Charter and international law, and exclaimed: “Let Cuba live in peace, Cuba would be “Better without the blockade.” Rodríguez maintained that the blockade “is an act of genocide (…), a deliberate act of economic warfare” with the purpose of weakening the Cuban economy, causing hunger and despair in its people and overthrowing the government.
Unlike those of the Security Council, the resolutions of the General Assembly are not binding, but they reflect the general opinion and also constitute in some way a moral thermometer, which gives Cuba year after year a new reason to condemn the punishment and demonstrate the isolation to which it is subjected by the United States, as well as the dire consequences that the blockade has for its population. The resolution reflects, above all, a global consensus on the issue. A position, some experts recall, that is not only a question of international relations, but is deeply rooted in international law and the principles of the United Nations.
The General Assembly resolution also conforms to the principles of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, which emphasizes the importance of fulfilling treaty obligations in good faith and especially the prohibition of coercive measures to bind a State. to submit their sovereign rights.
Hence, the implications of the Helms-Burton Act, which codified the US embargo, could call into question the principle of state sovereignty and freedom of trade and navigation established in customary international law, according to specialists.
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The blockade was imposed in 1960 after the revolution led by Fidel Castro and the nationalization of properties of American citizens and companies. It was reinforced two years later. The resolution raises “the need to end the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the United States of America against Cuba.”
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