Iran: US economic war violates sovereignty of all states

Tehran - BORNA - In a post on X, Baghaei said the new sanctions represented “far more than a continuation of the illegal ‘economic war’ against a single country.”

“They constitute an attempt to impose US extraterritorial jurisdiction over all independent member states of the United Nations,” he wrote.

Baghaei said no government has the right to force foreign banks, businesses or airports — each operating under the exclusive jurisdiction of its own sovereign state — to refrain from legitimate trade with a third country.

“Such secondary sanctions have no basis in international law,” he said.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson argued that the measures violate the fundamental principle of sovereign equality enshrined in Article 2(1) of the UN Charter as well as the customary prohibition on intervention in the domestic affairs of states, which he said was affirmed by the International Court of Justice in the Nicaragua case.

“Economic intimidation aimed at compelling a sovereign state to alter its legitimate policy choices constitutes a wrongful and internationally unlawful act,” Baghaei said.

He added that when such sanctions are combined with a maritime blockade, which he described as an act of aggression, the sovereignty of other countries is effectively reduced to something “temporary and conditional upon the will and whim of another power.”

Baghaei warned that compliance with such economic pressure would not protect other states.

Rather, he said, it would amount to prioritizing foreign sovereignty over their own and acknowledging the authority of an external power over the lawful activities of their banks, businesses and airports.

“The ultimate result would be the complete erosion of national sovereignty as a fundamental principle of the UN Charter-based system of interstate relations, paving the way for a disastrous return to outright and full-fledged colonialism,” he concluded.

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