International forum holds tribunal on US imperialism, rejects sanctions

An international forum comprised of high-profile scholars have held a tribunal on the atrocities perpetrated by successive US administrations through a range of imperialistic approaches, including draconian sanctions and coercive measures, against various countries across the world.

The event, titled the International People’s Tribunal on US Imperialism: Sanctions, Blockades, Economic Coercive Measures, was held on September 29-30, with Mohammad Marandi, a professor at University of Tehran and a political analyst, being among its key speakers.

The forum, as it website acknowledges, views sanctions not from the perspective of those who enforce them, but from the perspective of those most impacted by them, namely the people of Asia, Africa, and South America, with a focus on social, political, economic, and ecological issues.

“We support the right of people and nations to build their own societies free from the terror of imperialist war and violence,” the People’s Tribunal said.

“We are deeply concerned by the impact of US sanctions on the peoples of Latin America, Africa, and Asia, and believe that the only way to defeat the United States’ unlawful sanctions regimes is to rise up collectively against them,” it added.

Stressing that the forum is an international effort to undermine sanctions and challenge US imperialism, the People’s Tribunal said sanctions are a means of disciplining and controlling Global South sovereignty and blocking the emergence of a multipolar world order.

“We have concluded that sanctions regimes require the continuous development of new legal mechanisms, techniques, and technologies to manufacture international consent for their imposition,” the forum said.

“Thus, an inquiry into and an interrogation of these legal mechanisms is a necessary step toward ultimately dismantling sanctions regimes,” it added, rejecting that sanctions are peaceful or non-violent measures serving as alternatives to war.

The decisions by People’s Tribunals may not be binding and do not have the force of law, but the forum's achievements in a political and discursive register inspire and provide the tools necessary for finding appropriate solutions and taking legal actions to confront the restrictive US measures.

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