According to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in an informal online meeting of the foreign ministers of the BRICS group consisting of Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, these prominent politicians announced that unilateral sanctions impede the collective fight against COVID 19.

“We discussed the negative consequences of the sanctions, and all sides agreed that these restrictive measures were illegal and in violation of the UN Charter and Security Council resolutions, and violated international norms,” Lavrov said.

In addition to Iran, the United States has imposed unilateral sanctions on Russia, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea.

The United States has been using sanctions for years to crack down on countries that do not comply with its policies.

For example, for years, despite repeated requests from the international community in the form of UN General Assembly resolutions, the United States has not lifted its sanctions against Cuba.

The crisis caused by corona has created an opportunity to sensitize the international community to issues related to the right to development, as well as the duties and responsibilities of developed countries vis-à-vis developing countries in the third generation of human rights.

These rights have long been ignored by developed states in various ways, and these kinds of rights of developing states are being wasted. Now a crisis called corona has made these theoretical concepts even more tangible and transparent to the international community and has made it clear that crises and disasters are not limited to one geographical domain and only one country; so how better it would be for those with higher capabilities to empower others before the situation gets worse and refrain from throwing obstacle in the way of development of others.

About two weeks ago, with the adoption of the UN General Assembly Resolution on “Global Solidarity Against Coronavirus Disease”, the international community reaffirmed that no country alone can repel such a pervasive scourge.

Although Iran’s diplomatic activities to lift the US sanctions have been heightened in New York over the past month with the Iranian envoy joined by 20 other UN member states sending a joint letter to the UN secretary-general demanding the lifting of unilateral US sanctions to increase the capabilities of the countries under the sanctions in the fight against coronavirus stressed the need to fight the coronavirus, but it now appears that the golden opportunity created to explain the illegitimacy of US sanctions to the international community and to deal a major blow to Washington must be used.

Given the international community’s acceptance of such a view, it is imperative for the various political, legal, economic, research, academic, media, and non-governmental organizations to pursue a demanding approach on foreign relation to strip the United States of this inhumane tool.