North
Korea: Killer Sanctions Imposed By The UN
Security Council
By Peter
Koenig
August 11,
2017 "Information
Clearing House"
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As
reported by CNN, “The United Nations Security
Council on Saturday [5 August 2017] passed a
resolution imposing new sanctions on North Korea
for its continued intercontinental ballistic
missile (ICBM) testing and violations of UN
resolutions.
With 15
votes in favor, Resolution 2371 was passed
unanimously.
The
resolution targets North Korea’s primary
exports, including coal, iron, iron ore, lead,
lead ore and seafood. The sanctions also target
other revenue streams, such as banks and joint
ventures with foreign companies.”
Resolution
2371 was imposed – by whom else? – the United
States of America, the chief aggressor of the
universe; the exceptional rogue nation
that is never punished, never sanctioned by the
very Peace Body, the UN Security Council (UNSC),
for the millions of war deaths and drone murders
caused by illicit and hegemonic wars, by proxies
or by its own killing machine around the globe
within the last 70 years – or more.
This anti-DPRK
Resolution was unanimously approved by all 15
members of the UNSC, including North Korea’s
only allies, China and Russia. They may have had
their own strategic and selfish reasons for
their lack of solidarity, for not vetoing the
Resolution and instead proposing diplomatic
measures – or else. Diplomatic measures which
might have called to reason Washington and the
Pentagon hawks, as well as stopped Trump’s
monstrous warmongering, shouting nuclear threats
from his golf club in Bedminster, N.J., “They
will be met with fire and fury like the world
has never seen.” Russia and China could have
proposed a counter Resolution seeking dialogue
and forcing Washington to stop its belligerence.
– They didn’t. And that’s sad.
It is an
outright shame to what extent literally the
entire world is bending over backwards to please
Washington – and, as always, its dark and deep
state handlers that pull the strings on the
White House puppets. Have we become a world of
vassals to a dying empire?
The same
military aggressors led by Washington, more than
60 years ago have destroyed North Korea to
rubble, decimating its then population of 10
million by a third. The US has never allowed the
signing of a Peace Agreement. Instead the
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK)
under a shaky armistice pact was and is
permanently threatened by Washington’s huge
military bases in South Korea and Japan with
fleets of war planes and vessels. The DPRK’s
airspace is frequently invaded by US bombers;
military maneuvers by the US armed forces with
Japan and South Korea are repeated intimidations
on the peaceful lives of the North Korean
people. A 250 km long strictly enforced Military
Demarcation Line at the 38thparallel
north is keeping Korean families separated for
more than three generation.
What the
Kim-Jong-un
regime is showing the world is nothing more than
its readiness to defend the DPRK’s achievements
of a marvelously rebuilt country with full
social benefits of free education and health
services for more than 25 million people. The
nuclear deterrent is no danger to anyone, not
Japan, not its Southern brother, and least the
United States. And Trump knows damn well. His ‘fire
and fury’ boasting is nothing more than
sabre rattling, showmanship, as it pertains to a
golfing multi-billionaire psychopath, who is
dreaming of running a thanks-goodness faltering
empire. He wouldn’t dare touching North Korea,
because then, he would face the fire and fury of
DPRK’s allies, Russia and China, despite their
unfortunate UNSC vote.
The UN
sanctions, if observed, would reduce North
Korea’s annual export earnings by a third, i.e.
by an estimated US$ 1 billion. It might plunge
the country, already isolated by the west’s
previous sanctions into extreme hardship and
famine. Although it is unlikely that China, with
whom North Korea deals for 90% of its external
trade, would adhere to such sanctions, it is
nevertheless an unfair threat.
Let’s look
for a moment at the legality of the UN Sanctions
Resolution in a broader context – in a context
that the world’s populace has either never known
or easily forgets.
Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter
addresses Actions with
Respect to Threats to the Peace, Breaches of the
Peace, and Acts of Aggression.
These
actions are governed by specifically Articles
39, 40, 41 and 42 of Chapter VII:
Article 39
The Security Council shall determine the
existence of any threat to the peace, breach
of the peace, or act of aggression and shall
make recommendations, or decide what
measures shall be taken in accordance with
Articles 41 and 42, to maintain or restore
international peace and security.
Article 40
In order to prevent an aggravation of the
situation, the Security Council may, before
making the recommendations or deciding upon
the measures provided for in Article 39,
call upon the parties concerned to comply
with such provisional measures as it deems
necessary or desirable. Such provisional
measures shall be without prejudice to the
rights, claims, or position of the parties
concerned. The Security Council shall duly
take account of failure to comply with such
provisional measures.
Article 41
The Security Council may decide what
measures not involving the use of armed
force are to be employed to give effect to
its decisions, and it may call upon the
Members of the United Nations to apply such
measures. These may include complete or
partial interruption of economic relations
and of rail, sea, air, postal, telegraphic,
radio, and other means of communication, and
the severance of diplomatic relations.
Article 42
Should the Security Council consider that
measures provided for in Article 41 would be
inadequate or have proved to be inadequate,
it may take such action by air, sea, or land
forces as may be necessary to maintain or
restore international peace and security.
Such action may include demonstrations,
blockade, and other operations by air, sea,
or land forces of Members of the United
Nations.
Bilaterally imposed economic sanctions, the main
staple of the United States slapped around the
globe at will and at any nation that doesn’t
lick her boots, are totally illegal and in
breach of any international law.
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The
legality of UN imposed economic sanctions is
highly questionable in most cases, and
particularly in the case of North Korea, as they
may affect Human Rights, or more specifically
the civilian’s economic, social and cultural
rights (ESCR), as adverse collateral effects may
lead to a humanitarian emergency, i.e. the
shortage of certain goods and services essential
for the guarantee of basic standards of living (Gebs,
Robin. “Humanitarian Safeguards in Economic
Sanctions Regimes: A Call for Automatic
Suspension Clauses, Periodic Monitoring, and
Follow-Up Assessment of Long-Term Effects”. The
Harvard Human Rights Journal 18 (2005), p. 173).
In the
case of North Korea, such sanctions are outright
farcical, if not illegal, since the main
aggressor is not and has never been the DPRK,
but the United States.
It
would, however, never occur to any nation on
this lovely planet to introduce a sanctions
regime on the US of A through the foremost Peace
and Security body of the United Nations. – And
why not? – Because they are all afraid of US
retaliations. Though, Russia and China and the
block of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO)
that already comprises half of the world’s
population and controls one third of the globes
economic output – and is clearly in the process
of fully detaching themselves from the US-dollar
hegemony – they should no longer fear
retaliations – should they?
It is
mind-boggling, how the world, the league of
nation as it were, has been brainwashed to the
core accepting almost without exceptions and
questions Washington’s atrocities, crimes on
humanity, indiscriminate killings of tens of
millions of people around the world, the most
vicious human rights abuse recent history has
ever known, without blinking an eye. At the same
time, this ‘solidary’ league of nations is ready
to strangle a small brave nation, North Korea,
that is merely testing its capacity of
self-defense facing constant illegal threats
from the world’s aggressor in-chief, the United
States of America.
Peter Koenig is
an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is
also a former World Bank staff and worked
extensively around the world in the fields of
environment and water resources. He lectures at
universities in the US, Europe and South
America. He writes regularly for Global
Research, ICH, RT, Sputnik, PressTV, The 4th
Media (China), TeleSUR, The Vineyard of The
Saker Blog, and other internet sites. He is the
author of Implosion
– An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental
Destruction and Corporate Greed –
fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World
Bank experience around the globe. He is also a
co-author of The
World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the
Resistance.
The
views expressed in this article are solely those
of the author and do not necessarily reflect the
opinions of Information Clearing House.
