SATISH SHARMA - not just Rotigraphy.: 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.

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.

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.

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.

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 licence.

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.