Crime & Justice

Venezuela asks ICC to probe US sanctions as crime against humanity

Caracas, Aug 24 (EFE).- The Venezuelan government has provided the International Criminal Court (ICC) with evidence of the damage done by the sanctions the United States has imposed on the oil-rich Latin American nation, Vice President Delcy Rodriguez said.

The dossier was delivered Monday to the chief prosecutor of the ICC, Rodriguez told a press conference in Caracas.

President Nicolas Maduro’s government went to the ICC in February 2020 with the claim that the US “unilateral coercive measures” against Venezuela constitute a crime against humanity.

“We have obtained information on how (the sanctions) affected the medicine-producing industry in Venezuela. More than half the medicine-producing transnationals in the country left,” the vice president said.

All but 10 of the 150 individual companies affected by the sanctions are privately owned, Rodriguez said, adding that Washington has also targeted specific assets, including 30 oil tankers and 58 aircraft.

Among the 30 or so countries “sanctioned illicitly” by the US, Venezuela is fifth in the number of unilateral coercive measures it is enduring, she said.

Earlier this year, the United Nations special rapporteur on unilateral coercive measures and human rights, Alena Douhan, described the effect of US and European Union sanctions on Venezuela as “devastating.”

Sanctions-driven shortages of electricity, water, fuel, food and medicine are having “enormous impact over all categories of human rights, including the rights to life, to food, to health and to development,” Douhan said.

In a study released in April 2019, the Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Research estimated that the US sanctions caused more than 40,000 deaths in Venezuela in 2017-2018. EFE

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