Stocktaking and vision-mapping

The present report is submitted pursuant to Human Rights Council resolutions 27/21 and 54/15, in which the Special Rapporteur on the negative impact of unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights was requested, inter alia, to gather all relevant information relating to the negative impact of unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights; to study relevant trends, developments and challenges; and to make guidelines and recommendations on ways and means to prevent, minimize and redress the adverse impact of such measures on human rights.

The mandate is, at its core, about the rights of ordinary people, including those who hold no political power and bear no responsibility for the conduct of their Governments, who should not be made to bear the human cost of disputes between States, and about the guarantees owed to every person whom such measures reach. As unilateral coercive measures have proliferated over the past six decades, the cost has fallen disproportionately on people whom the measures were not intended to harm: women, children, older persons, sick persons, displaced persons and entire populations in countries far removed from the political disputes that gave rise to the measures. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has observed that such measures can create severe and undue suffering for individuals who bear no responsibility for the conduct at issue.¹

1. Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, “High Commissioner calls for critical re-evaluation of the human rights impact of unilateral sanctions”, statement by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, 16 September 2021. ↩

A cross-country analysis published in The Lancet Global Health in August 2025 associates unilateral economic sanctions with more than half a million deaths each year, a toll comparable to that of armed conflict globally.² A separate analysis in the same journal finds that aid-related sanctions alone increase infant mortality by 3.1 per cent, under-5 mortality by 3.6 per cent and maternal mortality by 6.4 per cent annually in affected countries.³ The cumulative impact is that a substantial proportion of the world’s population must contend with the spillover effect of measures whose human rights consequences the mandate was created to examine.

2. Francisco Rodríguez, Silvio Rendón and Mark Weisbrot, “Effects of international sanctions on agespecific mortality: a cross-national panel data analysis”, The Lancet Global Health, vol. 13, No. 8 (August 2025), pp. e1358–e1366; see also Ruth M. Gibson and Gary L. Darmstadt, “Sanctions and humanitarian outcomes: four decades of academic scholarship”, The Lancet Global Health, vol. 13, No. 8 (August 2025), pp. e1328 and e1329. ↩
3. Ruth M. Gibson and others, “The impact of aid sanctions on maternal and child mortality, 1990–2019: a panel analysis”, The Lancet Global Health, vol. 13, No. 5 (May 2025), pp. e820–e830. ↩

Over more than a decade, the previous mandate holders built a substantial foundation for the protection of human rights in this environment. The first mandate holder, Idriss Jazairy (1 May 2015 to 9 December 2019), laid the conceptual and institutional groundwork. He established the analytical lens of the mandate by situating the human rights consequences of unilateral coercive measures within the broader framework of the Charter of the United Nations, the International Bill of Human Rights and the rule of law. He documented the resurgence of comprehensive measures and de facto blockades, drew attention to the human cost of secondary sanctions and extraterritorial enforcement and called for the elaboration of a United Nations declaration on unilateral coercive measures and the rule of law, the elements of which he transmitted to the Human Rights Council in 2017, 2018 and 2019.⁴

4. A/HRC/36/44, annex II; A/HRC/39/54, annex; and A/HRC/42/46/Add.1. ↩

The second mandate holder, Alena Douhan (25 March 2020 to 30 April 2026), deepened and broadened the mandate’s analytical reach over her two terms. She advanced the conceptual framework through a dedicated examination of the notion, types and qualification of unilateral coercive measures, addressed the practice of secondary sanctions, and civil and criminal penalties for circumvention of sanctions regimes, and examined the application of unilateral measures in the cyber domain.⁵ She addressed the global phenomenon of overcompliance, a form of self-imposed restraint that goes beyond what sanctions require. Overcompliance is often adopted to minimize the risk of inadvertent violations, to avoid reputational exposure or to contain the cost of case-by-case due diligence.⁶ Through successive thematic reports, she documented the impact of unilateral coercive measures on the right to health; on economic, labour and social rights; on the right to education and academic freedoms; on access to justice; and on groups in vulnerable situations.⁷ She developed a methodology and a tool to monitor and assess the impact of unilateral sanctions and overcompliance on human rights.⁸ She also developed the guiding principles on sanctions and business and human rights, with an accompanying commentary, drawing on the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.

5. A/HRC/48/59 and A/HRC/48/59/Corr.1, A/HRC/51/33 and A/77/296. ↩
6. A/HRC/51/33, para. 17. ↩
7. A/HRC/54/23, A/HRC/60/36, A/80/208, A/79/183 and A/76/174/Rev.1. ↩
8. See A/HRC/57/55. ↩

The newly appointed Special Rapporteur, who assumed her functions on 1 May 2026, takes up the mandate at a moment when the body of work produced by her predecessors offers both a substantial conceptual edifice and a clear set of openings for further development. The challenges identified by both previous mandate holders have not diminished. These include the proliferation and extraterritorial reach of unilateral coercive measures, the difficulties that overcompliance creates for humanitarian action and the absence of an effective remedy for those affected. New questions have come to the fore, including the legal and human rights implications of the confiscation of frozen assets, the operationalization of humanitarian carveouts and the cumulative effects of unilateral measures on third States and on global public goods, such as food security. The mandate is now at a stage where the further development of work thereunder calls for deepening the operational dimensions of existing instruments, strengthening the empirical and methodological foundations of impact assessment, advancing pending normative initiatives and engaging closely with the full range of stakeholders, including States, international organizations, civil society, business actors and academic institutions.

In preparing the present report, the Special Rapporteur held consultations in Geneva with regional and cross-regional groups of States, individual delegations and civil society organizations. Section II of the report situates the mandate within the current landscape and sets out the strategic direction in which it will be carried forward. Section III presents, in aggregate form, the themes that emerged from those initial consultations. Section IV takes stock of what has been established through work under the mandate across 11 years of practice.

The mandate is being carried forward at a moment of pronounced strain on the multilateral order. The United Nations is experiencing a severe liquidity crisis affecting regular budget operations.⁹ Official development assistance declined sharply in 2025, falling by 23.1 per cent in real terms, the largest annual contraction on record, while humanitarian official development assistance decreased by 35.8 per cent.¹⁰ Analyses across institutional perspectives have characterized the period as one of accelerating fragmentation of cooperation and the international order.11 6 A/HRC/51/33, para. 17. 7 A/HRC/54/23, A/HRC/60/36, A/80/208, A/79/183 and A/76/174/Rev.1. 8 See A/HRC/57/55. 9 United Nations, “UN80 Initiative: frequently asked questions”, available at https://www.un.org/un80initiative/en/frequently-asked-questions. 10 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, “A historic decline in foreign aid: preliminary 2025 ODA data”, 9 April 2026. 11 Stewart Patrick, “League of Nations redux? Multilateralism in the post-American world”, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 9 September 2025; and Brookings Institution, “The world is changing, multilateralism must too”, 14 October 2025. GE.26-10827

9. United Nations, “UN80 Initiative: frequently asked questions”, available at https://www.un.org/un80-initiative/en/frequently-asked-questions. ↩
10. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, “A historic decline in foreign aid: preliminary 2025 ODA data”, 9 April 2026. ↩

This context matters for work under the mandate in three concrete ways. First, the use of unilateral coercive measures has expanded amid weakening confidence in collective multilateral mechanisms. The share of the world’s economy subject to unilateral sanctions has grown from 5.4 per cent in the 1960s to 24.7 per cent in the period 2010–2022.¹² These developments point to the normalization of sanctions and counter-sanctions across national, regional and international settings.¹³

12. Rodríguez, Rendón and Weisbrot, “Effects of international sanctions on age-specific mortality”. ↩
13. A/78/196, para. 15. ↩

Second, the populations affected by these measures are less able to count on the protective architecture that the multilateral system was designed to provide. Reductions in development assistance, restrictions on humanitarian operations and the contraction of cooperative frameworks intersect with the measures themselves, compounding their human cost. Nor do the measures operate in a vacuum. Armed conflict, climate change, environmental degradation and indebtedness aggravate their effects on the populations concerned and are aggravated by them in turn. Cross-national panel data covering 152 countries from 1971 to 2021 show a significant association between unilateral sanctions and elevated mortality in target States, with effects most pronounced among children under 5 and persons aged 60 to 80.¹⁴ Between 1990 and 2019, the average low- and middle-income country substantially reduced maternal, infant and under-5 mortality. A separate analysis estimates that a five-year episode of aid sanctions, which was the median duration observed in the study, would negate 64 per cent of that country’s progress on maternal mortality, 29 per cent on infant mortality and 26 per cent on under-5 mortality.¹⁵

14. Rodríguez, Rendón and Weisbrot, “Effects of international sanctions on age-specific mortality”. ↩
15. Gibson and others, “The impact of aid sanctions on maternal and child mortality”. ↩

Third, the questions falling within the mandate are no longer confined to the legal characterization of measures already imposed. They extend to whether the principles of the Charter of the United Nations, the universality of human rights and the obligations of international cooperation continue to constrain State conduct in practice. In this context, the mandate’s function is not only to document the human consequences of unilateral coercive measures but also to ensure that the standards governing the conduct of States towards populations beyond their own borders remain visible and operative.

The analysis carried out under the mandate of the effects of such measures keeps two facts in view at the same time. First, it acknowledges that States present such measures as responses to violations of international law, to aggression or to serious violations of human rights, and the present report does not adjudicate those stated purposes. Second, it also recognizes that the settings in which measures operate are often marked by conflict, economic crisis, disaster or pandemic, such that attributing harm requires care, and the assessment methodology developed under the mandate exists for precisely that task.¹⁶ Neither fact weakens the principle on which the mandate rests. A measure’s stated purposes do not suspend the protections owed to the population that it affects, and the presence of other causes of hardship does not diminish those protections. That principle is reflected in the law of State responsibility, under which even lawful countermeasures may not affect obligations for the protection of fundamental human rights.¹⁷

16. A/HRC/57/55, paras. 18 and 27. ↩
17. International Law Commission, articles on responsibility of States for internationally wrongful acts (General Assembly resolution 56/83, annex), art. 50 (1) (b). ↩

The institutional vocabulary used within the United Nations system to describe unilateral coercive measures tends to operate at the level of categories of legal qualification, instrument and target. That vocabulary remains indispensable. It cannot, however, by itself, capture what these measures have become in practice, which is something broader and more diffuse than the categories suggest. This is evident in the increasingly layered design, implementation and enforcement of these measures, in the emergence of new modalities and manifestations and in the diverse ways in which affected populations experience their consequences.

Contemporary measures operate through a layered architecture in which a primary sanctions designation is reinforced by secondary sanctions; civil and criminal penalties are imposed for circumvention; financial enforcement is driven through correspondent banking and the major reserve currencies; designation processes operate at administrative speed while access to review varies across regimes; and an evolving body of guidance documents must be continually interpreted by private actors. The human rights impacts arise not only from the measures themselves, but also from the decisions of financial institutions, insurers, transport providers, suppliers, shipping companies, digital platforms and humanitarian actors. The phenomenon of overcompliance is a manifestation of this dynamic, often extending the practical reach and consequences of the measures beyond their formal legal scope.¹⁸

18. See A/HRC/51/33 and A/HRC/57/55. ↩

Measures imposed against one State affect the conditions of trade, finance and humanitarian operations in third States that are not themselves the target. Consequently, measures need not be imposed directly on a population to affect access to food, health, finance and humanitarian operations. Accordingly, those affected cannot be treated as a single population sharing the same experiences or bearing the same consequences. The effects of such measures are mediated by individual circumstances, existing vulnerabilities and social and economic conditions, resulting in varied and nuanced outcomes. An analysis centered on rights holders draws attention to the diverse ways in which their human rights, humanitarian and developmental consequences are experienced by different individuals and communities, whose voices and lived realities often remain obscured by institutional categories alone.

Unilateral coercive measures in their contemporary form cannot be adequately understood by examining the measures themselves. They must be understood through their mediation: through the financial, commercial and information systems that transmit their effects; through the decisions of private actors who give them operational reach; and through the experience of the populations on whom their consequences ultimately fall, including in States that are not their object.

Drawing on this analysis, the consultations held and the stocktaking presented in the sections that follow, the Special Rapporteur sets out the direction in which she will carry the mandate forward. The direction is one of continuity, and the approach will be human rights-based and participatory. The present report deepens, systematizes and extends the human rights approach developed under the mandate, connecting the universality of rights, the everyday experience of affected populations, the pathways through which harm is produced and the obligations of prevention, remedy, restitution and recovery.¹⁹ The Special Rapporteur will create direct opportunities to consult affected populations, recognizing them as an indispensable source of evidence, experience and analysis. The elements transmitted to the Human Rights Council under the mandate already call for human rights impact assessment with their effective public participation.²⁰ Participation will be designed to capture lived realities and the second-order effects of unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights. Because affected populations take part as rights holders, engagement extends to accountability, access to justice and effective remedies, and the realization of the right to self-determination.

19. See Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and Reparation for Victims of Gross Violations of International Human Rights Law and Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law (General Assembly resolution 60/147, annex). ↩
20. A/HRC/42/46/Add.1, para. 16 (a). ↩

Assessing the human rights consequences of unilateral coercive measures requires: (a) the precise legal characterization of a measure under the mandate’s established framework; (b) a clear account of how a measure operates; and (c) evidence capable of establishing its contribution to the impairment of rights. The inquiry must remain attentive to scale, distribution and duration and to the capacity of institutions, including health systems, schools, courts, banks and systems of social protection, to continue performing the functions through which rights are realized.²¹

21. A/HRC/57/55, paras. 17–28. ↩

Because rights are enjoyed through the ordinary conditions of daily life, the Special Rapporteur’s thematic work will build on the efforts of her predecessors and be organized around the systems that secure those conditions, including health and humanitarian action; education, access to information and scientific cooperation; digital infrastructure and technological access; finance, development, debt and sovereign assets; climate resilience, natural resources and disaster response; migration and mobility; the institutions of justice and multilateral cooperation; and recovery after measures are lifted.

The Sanctions Research Platform and the monitoring and impact assessment tool developed under the mandate provide key infrastructure to support this approach. The Special Rapporteur intends to engage with civil society organizations, national human rights institutions, statistical institutions, humanitarian actors and academic networks across affected regions to extend the platform through which affected populations can contribute meaningfully to her analysis.

The geographical scope of the Special Rapporteur’s work will reflect the full range of contexts in which unilateral coercive measures have human rights consequences. Comprehensive measures imposed on a limited number of States, which have long been examined within the mandate and the human rights system, will remain a critical focus. Attention will also be directed toward less visible contexts, including regional sanctions regimes, measures whose adverse effects are borne by third States or non-target populations and patterns of economic coercion that receive limited scrutiny.

The Special Rapporteur will further examine contemporary forms of unilateral coercive measures that rely on private actors, produce extraterritorial effects and generate significant spillover. Concerns also emerge in the context of trade and economic agreements, where asymmetries of power, geopolitical considerations or conditionalities may exert coercive pressure on national decision-making.

The conceptual framing of the Special Rapporteur’s work will keep in view the relationship between unilateral coercive measures and the right of peoples to self-determination, including the right to freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development, as affirmed in common article 1 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Self-determination is fundamentally linked to freedom of choice and the ability of peoples to determine their own development priorities free from external coercion. The Special Rapporteur will examine how unilateral coercive measures may constrain policy formation, impede or reverse development, undermine economic growth and increase debt. Particular attention will be paid to situations in which such measures impose broad and indiscriminate burdens on civilian populations, resulting in the denial of human rights and raising serious questions of proportionality and non-discrimination.

A human rights-based and participatory approach requires sustained engagement with States, international organizations, regional bodies, civil society and affected communities, and the Special Rapporteur will pursue that engagement as a constitutive feature of the mandate. Because such measures extend across the full range of rights, she will also work in close cooperation with other special procedure mandate holders on the transversal issues that their mandates share, drawing on the knowledge accumulated across the system. Within these directions, two questions highlighted in the consultations held and the record of work under the mandate will receive early attention: the practical functioning of humanitarian exemptions and carveouts; and the question of accountability and effective remedy for those affected, including the treatment of frozen assets. The consultations reported in the following section reflect the beginning of that practice, and the stocktaking that follows them sets out the record on which these directions will build. 21 A/HRC/57/55, paras. 17–28. GE.26-10827

Between 23 and 26 June 2026, the Special Rapporteur held a series of introductory and consultative meetings in Geneva, in which she met with five regional and cross-regional groups of States, held bilateral discussions with 10 individual delegations and convened two group consultations with civil society organizations. Taken together, these meetings brought her into direct exchange with at least 60 States and nine organizations. The themes that followed from these exchanges, set out below, will shape the programme of work described in the present report.

The present section reports what the Special Rapporteur heard in aggregate. No view is attributed to any State, group or participant, and none should be inferred. The consultations confirmed that the long-standing divide over the legality of unilateral coercive measures persists, with positions ranging from categorical unlawfulness to the lawfulness of targeted measures imposed in accordance with international law. The mandate’s own foundations are established by the resolutions of the Human Rights Council, and the work described in the present report proceeds from them. Conclusions about any specific measure or situation, however, rest on evidence and on the careful attribution of harm.

The topic of overcompliance recurred across all consultation formats and was raised in group meetings, in bilateral discussions and by civil society alike. Interlocutors whose views differ widely on the legality and the utility of unilateral coercive measures described the same practical problem.

The consultations with civil society organizations brought distinct perspectives. Organizations engaged in humanitarian and development work described the practical obstacles that their operations meet. These include banking channels lost or narrowed under sanctions long before any crisis, such that transfers fail or stall at the moment when funds are most urgently needed for emergency response, and the persistence of those obstacles even where restrictions are eased or lifted. They stressed the situation of persons in the most vulnerable circumstances and asked that affected communities themselves be enabled to contribute their experience directly to the Special Rapporteur’s work.

The Special Rapporteur sees this convergence of views as an opening. No sanctioning State presents overcompliance as an objective of its policy. The problem can therefore be approached cooperatively, without prejudice to the broader disagreements that divide States on other questions. She will pursue structured dialogue, in particular with States, financial supervisory authorities, business associations and humanitarian actors, on the causes of the practice and the means to correct it.

Some States asked for analysis that differentiates among measures rather than treating them as a single undifferentiated category. They pointed out that measures differ in their design, scope, duration, targeting and safeguards, ranging from comprehensive trade and financial restrictions to the designation of individuals or entities. Some measures, they noted, are accompanied by humanitarian carveouts or are subject to periodic review and judicial challenge, while others are not. Contexts, they added, differ as much as the measures themselves. They asked that specific measures be tracked to specific consequences and that types of measures, their transmission channels and the groups that they affect be clearly identified.

The Special Rapporteur shares these concerns and regards the specificity that was called for as an opportunity. Credible analysis requires precision about how a particular measure is designed, how it operates and how human beings are affected by its consequences. That specificity offers common ground on which the Special Rapporteur and States, including those that have historically kept their distance from the mandate, can meet to share technical insights, processes and assessment methodologies.

The call for differentiated analysis connected directly to a set of questions about the monitoring and impact assessment tool developed under the mandate. Interlocutors asked how its indicators were chosen, how submissions were verified, how far its coverage could extend and how the tool would be resourced over time. The Special Rapporteur will convene technical consultations on the methodology in the coming year and renew the invitation to contribute data. That invitation extends to all States, including those that impose measures, and to United Nations entities, national institutions, researchers, civil society, financial institutions and businesses, and affected populations.

The consultations returned repeatedly to the practical operation of humanitarian carveouts. Interlocutors asked which exemptions functioned in practice and where they failed, how long licensing took and on whom the burden of proving the humanitarian character of an activity fell and what Security Council resolution 2664 (2022) had changed in banking practice. These are questions of implementation rather than of principle, and they can be answered only with evidence from those who operate under the exemptions. The Special Rapporteur will therefore examine, with humanitarian organizations, financial institutions and licensing authorities, how exemptions operate at each stage from application through licensing and payment to delivery, in order to establish where and why authorized assistance is delayed or blocked and what specific changes in design or administration would address those obstacles.

In the course of the consultations, the Special Rapporteur raised the possibility of a comparative mapping of the safeguards contained in the domestic and regional frameworks under which measures are imposed, and the exchanges confirmed the value of such an exercise. Such a mapping would consider what types of humanitarian exemption frameworks are provided for, what timelines and standards govern licensing and what provisions exist for review, appeal or expiry. A comparative mapping would allow the practices that limit harm to become visible to the legislators and administrators who weigh reform options and would also seek to quantify impact in order to later assess effectiveness. The Special Rapporteur will aim to set out the scope and modalities of the exercise in due course.

Some interlocutors raised measures that sit at the mandate’s edge, such as coercive conditions attached to trade arrangements and unilateral climate-related border measures whose effects extend beyond the enacting jurisdiction. The question raised was how to capture the contemporary forms of such measures and the ways in which they are framed as non-coercive in nature, thereby appearing to fall outside the scope of the mandate, while their adverse effects and consequences – at times on full populations and with long-lasting impact – clearly entail their direct relevance. The qualification framework already applied under the mandate provides the test for these questions, and the Special Rapporteur will assess specific instruments against it on a case-by-case basis as and when they arise, consistent with the direction set out in section II.

Concern was expressed in more than one consultative meeting about measures directed at the judges, prosecutors and officials of the International Criminal Court. Measures of this kind adversely affect the independence of justice itself, and with it the interest of every State in the credibility of international adjudication. The Special Rapporteur considers that such measures warrant particular attention within her work on accountability and access to justice, which she will pursue in coordination with relevant thematic mandate holders.

The Human Rights Council established the mandate by its resolution 27/21 and renewed it most recently through resolution 54/15.²² Eleven years of practice under the mandate have produced a substantial body of thematic reports, country findings, communications, expert consultations and practical instruments. Previous mandate holders conducted official country visits to Qatar, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Zimbabwe, the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Syrian Arab Republic, China and Cuba, in that order.²³ The Special Rapporteur intends to keep the situation in the States visited under review and to continue the practice of country visits across the full range of contexts described in the present report. Requests to visit a number of countries before the end of 2026 were sent out with the aim of conducting the mandate holder’s first country visit before the end of the year.

22. On the tasks entrusted under the mandate, see A/HRC/57/55, para. 1. ↩
23. See A/HRC/48/59/Add.1, A/HRC/48/59/Add.2, A/HRC/51/33/Add.2, A/HRC/51/33/Add.1, A/HRC/54/23/Add.1, A/HRC/57/55/Add.1 and A/HRC/63/29/Add.1. ↩

Previous mandate holders have articulated a settled working vocabulary for the notion, types and qualification of the measures concerned, distinguishing measures authorized by the Security Council, retorsion and countermeasures from the residual category of unilateral coercive measures, while noting the absence of general agreement among States on their precise elements.²⁴

24. A/HRC/48/59 and A/HRC/48/59/Corr.1, in particular paras. 94–96. ↩

Successive reports have documented how unilateral coercive measures and the means of their enforcement affect the conditions of daily life in targeted societies and beyond. On economic, labour and social rights, the reports have recorded rising unemployment and working poverty, public sector wages falling far below the cost of a basic food basket, the informalization of work, and the erosion of social protection, housing programmes and essential services as State revenue contracts.²⁵ On the right to health, they have identified effects on access to medication, equipment and qualified care, on disease prevention and on international medical cooperation.²⁶ On education and science, they have documented discontinued programmes, blocked databases and platforms, and the exclusion of researchers from publication and cooperation.²⁷

25. A/HRC/60/36, paras. 27–29, 39–41, 46 and 60–63. ↩
26. Ibid., para. 62. See also A/HRC/54/23. ↩
27. A/78/196, paras. 55–58. See also A/80/208. ↩

The record of work under the mandate consistently shows that the heaviest consequences fall on those least able to bear them: women, children, persons with disabilities, older persons, refugees, displaced persons, migrants and people living in poverty.²⁸ 28 The record further links prolonged measures to emigration and irregular migration, with attendant risks of exploitation and trafficking.²⁹ Effects on the right to food, including in third States, are also on the record.³⁰ It has further been shown that measures of every design, targeted as well as sectoral or comprehensive, propagate population-wide effects that deepen over time and interact with conflict, disaster and epidemics.31 22 On the tasks entrusted under the mandate, see A/HRC/57/55, para. 1. 23 See A/HRC/48/59/Add.1, A/HRC/48/59/Add.2, A/HRC/51/33/Add.2, A/HRC/51/33/Add.1, A/HRC/54/23/Add.1, A/HRC/57/55/Add.1 and A/HRC/63/29/Add.1. 24 A/HRC/48/59 and A/HRC/48/59/Corr.1, in particular paras. 94–96. 25 A/HRC/60/36, paras. 27–29, 39–41, 46 and 60–63. 26 Ibid., para. 62. See also A/HRC/54/23. 27 A/78/196, paras. 55–58. See also A/80/208. 28 A/HRC/51/33, para. 54; and A/78/196, para. 12. 29 A/HRC/60/36, paras. 28 and 33. 30 Ibid., paras. 52–54. 31 A/78/196, para. 72. GE.26-10827

28. A/HRC/51/33, para. 54; and A/78/196, para. 12. ↩
29. A/HRC/60/36, paras. 28 and 33. ↩
30. Ibid., paras. 52–54. ↩

The most sustained analytical contribution of the work carried out under the mandate concerns overcompliance: self-imposed restraint by financial and commercial actors that exceeds the requirements of applicable sanctions regimes in order to reduce the risk of inadvertent violations, limit reputational or market exposure or avoid the cost of transaction-specific due diligence. The record of the mandate shows the practice in every business sector and describes overcompliance as pervasive in banking. Its documented forms range from complete withdrawal from a market to the refusal of transactions that are expressly authorized, and its effects include demands for onerous documentation, additional fees and delays, the freezing of assets not subject to any measure, and the denial of accounts and services on the ground of a person’s nationality, place of birth or residence.³² The practice extends into the digital domain, where service providers restricting access to platforms, software and information on little more than a suspected connection to a sanctioned country were documented.³³ It can begin before measures enter into force and persist after they are lifted.³⁴ Documented instances include one involving exempt medical supplies on which chronically ill patients depended, which ceased to arrive when no institution could be found to process payment.³⁵

32. A/HRC/51/33, paras. 17, 25–38 and 63; and A/78/196, para. 11. ↩
33. A/77/296, paras. 25, 26, 31 and 34. ↩
34. A/HRC/51/33, para. 21. ↩
35. Ibid., para. 26. ↩

The drivers of this conduct were located in the design and enforcement of the measures themselves. The regimes are multiple, complex and frequently revised, including at the regional level. The measures imposed on Mali by the Economic Community of West African States, for example, were changed repeatedly within months of their adoption.³⁶ Further drivers include broad terms interpreted through a proliferation of non-binding guidance treated in practice as binding, penalties for circumvention, with settlements reaching $9 billion, and due diligence costs that can exceed the value of the goods concerned.³⁷

36. Ibid., para. 46. ↩
37. Ibid., paras. 32, 45–47 and 50; and A/78/196, paras. 9, 22–24 and 32–40. ↩

Formal exemptions are often ineffective in practice, with licensing delays of up to a year and a half, multiple licences required for a single delivery, and a burden of proving the humanitarian character of an activity that shifts operators from needs assessment to risk assessment.³⁸ Treaty bodies recognized the insufficiency of humanitarian exemptions as early as 1997.³⁹

38. A/78/196, paras. 68–72. See also A/HRC/51/33, paras. 18, 19 and 56–59. ↩
39. Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, general comment No. 8 (1997), paras. 3–5; see also A/78/196, para. 68. ↩

The response of previous mandate holders has been deliberately cooperative. A guidance note on overcompliance was issued, and individual cases were raised through communications to States, banks, businesses and publishers.⁴⁰ 40 Advice from financial supervisory authorities cautioning banks against the wholesale de-risking of entire categories of customers was also welcomed.⁴¹ In 2025, following consultations and an international conference, the previous mandate holder presented the guiding principles on sanctions, business and human rights with a commentary.⁴² The guiding principles address both the conduct of States, including legal certainty, the clarity of humanitarian carveouts and the simplification of licensing, and the compliance policies of businesses, including due diligence and transparency.43 32 A/HRC/51/33, paras. 17, 25–38 and 63; and A/78/196, para. 11. 33 A/77/296, paras. 25, 26, 31 and 34. 34 A/HRC/51/33, para. 21. 35 Ibid., para. 26. 36 Ibid., para. 46. 37 Ibid., paras. 32, 45–47 and 50; and A/78/196, paras. 9, 22–24 and 32–40. 38 A/78/196, paras. 68–72. See also A/HRC/51/33, paras. 18, 19 and 56–59. 39 Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, general comment No. 8 (1997), paras. 3–5; see also A/78/196, para. 68. 40 OHCHR, “Guidance note on overcompliance with unilateral sanctions and its harmful effects on human rights”, available at https://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/sr-unilateral-coercivemeasures/resources-unilateral-coercive-measures/guidance-note-overcompliance-unilateral-sanctionsand-its-harmful-effects-human-rights; and A/78/196, para. 13. 41 A/HRC/51/33, para. 44. 42 A/HRC/60/36, para. 12. 43 Guiding principles on sanctions, business and human rights, sects. I, IV and V and principle 33. GE.26-10827

40. OHCHR, “Guidance note on overcompliance with unilateral sanctions and its harmful effects on human rights”, available at https://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/sr-unilateral-coercive-measures/resources-unilateral-coercive-measures/guidance-note-overcompliance-unilateral-sanctions-and-its-harmful-effects-human-rights; and A/78/196, para. 13. ↩
41. A/HRC/51/33, para. 44. ↩
42. A/HRC/60/36, para. 12. ↩

This kind of reflection is not confined to work under the mandate. In its 2021 review of its sanctions programmes, the Department of the Treasury of the United States of America recommended calibrating measures to mitigate unintended economic, political and humanitarian impact and committed to addressing obstacles to humanitarian activity in heavily sanctioned jurisdictions.⁴⁴ Similarly, in 2023, the Financial Action Task Force revised its recommendation 8, which concerns the protection of non-profit organizations from abuse for terrorist financing, after finding that misapplication of its standards had led to disproportionate measures against non-profit organizations, de-risking and financial exclusion.⁴⁵

44. United States of America, Department of the Treasury, “The Treasury 2021 sanctions review”, October 2021. ↩
45. Financial Action Task Force, “Protecting non-profits from abuse for terrorist financing through the risk-based implementation of revised FATF Recommendation 8”, 16 November 2023. ↩

Secondary sanctions were examined as the principal means of enforcing unilateral measures beyond the territory of the imposing State, as demonstrated in the designation or penalization of third-country companies and individuals for presumed dealings with sanctioned parties, and their exclusion from markets, currencies and financial systems.⁴⁶ The position, shared by many States, was taken that the legality of such extraterritorial enforcement is doubtful under international law.⁴⁷ The previous mandate holder documented instances of enforcement involving conduct with no closer connection to the enforcing State than a correspondent account, a dollar-clearing operation or the location of software and servers, and recorded, on the basis of the review carried out by the United States Department of the Treasury itself, a rise in that country’s active designations from 912 in 2000 to 9,421 in 2021.⁴⁸

46. A/HRC/51/33, paras. 11 and 12. ↩
47. Ibid., paras. 13 and 14. ↩
48. See https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/R/PDF/R47829/R47829.2.pdf. ↩

The responses that this reach has provoked were also traced, from the anti-boycott provisions adopted by the United States in 1977 to the blocking statutes of the European Union (adopted in 1996), the Russian Federation (in 2018) and China (in 2021).⁴⁹ The findings on third States reveal a widespread pattern of collateral damage. This systemic overreach leaves pensioners abroad unable to access their funds, blocks States from paying dues, resulting in suspended voting rights, and leaves United Nations operations paralysed by bank non-cooperation. Furthermore, it drives severe macroeconomic instability, resulting in factory closures and contract losses across both third nations and sanctioning States alike.⁵⁰

49. A/HRC/51/33, paras. 72 and 73. ↩
50. A/HRC/60/36, paras. 24, 32, 57 and 70. ↩

The avenues of recourse available to designated persons, those facing penalties for alleged circumvention and affected populations at large were assessed and found to be limited and inconsistent. Designation takes place by administrative or executive act rather than through judicial process. The availability and depth of review vary across regimes, and where review exists, it was found to be largely confined to procedure rather than to the merits. Delisting can take years, at costs that put it beyond the reach of all but the largest actors.⁵¹

51. A/78/196, para. 30. ↩

Representation itself may require specific licences, since general licences do not extend to all regimes or services. The payment of legal fees encounters separate obstacles. A licence may be required for the payment itself, and banks have declined to process such payments. Legal professionals themselves face exposure, and measures imposed on judges 44 United States of America, Department of the Treasury, “The Treasury 2021 sanctions review”, October 2021. 45 Financial Action Task Force, “Protecting non-profits from abuse for terrorist financing through the risk-based implementation of revised FATF Recommendation 8”, 16 November 2023. 46 A/HRC/51/33, paras. 11 and 12. 47 Ibid., paras. 13 and 14. 48 See https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/R/PDF/R47829/R47829.2.pdf. 49 A/HRC/51/33, paras. 72 and 73. 50 A/HRC/60/36, paras. 24, 32, 57 and 70. 51 A/78/196, para. 30. GE.26-10827 and officials of the International Criminal Court were assessed under the mandate as incompatible with judicial independence and with their privileges and immunities.⁵²

52. A/79/183, paras. 32–35. ↩

At the international level, existing legal avenues offer virtually no effective protection. The review under the mandate of global judicial bodies revealed systemic failures across all major routes. At the International Court of Justice, cases concerning sanctions are rare, and the Court’s occasional rulings on the matter remain largely unimplemented. The Appellate Body of the World Trade Organization has been completely paralysed and unable to function since 2020. Courts at the regional level apply highly restrictive standards that favour State security over individual rights. While human rights treaty bodies offer a theoretical path for claims, they remain largely underutilized by affected populations.⁵³

53. Ibid., paras. 36–47. ↩

On assets, a distinction was drawn between freezing and blocking, under which title remains with the owner while its exercise is suspended, and confiscation, and that distinction was tested by legislation adopted or considered in several jurisdictions in 2024 and 2025.⁵⁴ It was concluded that newly adopted legislation providing for the confiscation of sovereign property contravenes the norms on State immunity and the sovereign equality of States and that confiscation of private property without criminal conviction is incompatible with the presumption of innocence and the right to property.⁵⁵

54. A/HRC/60/36, para. 17. ↩
55. Ibid., paras. 17–21. ↩

On the normative side, the first mandate holder transmitted to the Human Rights Council, in three successive versions, elements for a General Assembly declaration centered on due process: disclosure of the grounds for measures, judicial review of their substance, notification, time-bound duration, periodic review, reversibility, humanitarian exceptions, impact assessment and compensation where unwarranted harm has occurred.⁵⁶ The transmitted elements also stated that, where measures produced effects comparable to those of a wartime blockade, the protections of international humanitarian law should apply mutatis mutandis.⁵⁷

56. A/HRC/42/46/Add.1, in particular para. 16. ↩
57. Ibid., para. 13; see also A/74/165. ↩

The humanitarian impacts of coercive measures were also assessed.⁵⁸ To measure these impacts, a new assessment methodology was developed based on the 2004 Handbook for Assessing the Humanitarian Implications of Sanctions produced by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs of the Secretariat in collaboration with member agencies of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee. The Sanctions Research Platform is an open repository of research launched in 2023, and the monitoring and impact assessment tool, launched in 2024, receives and protects submissions from States, United Nations entities, national institutions, civil society and individuals and presents results publicly. Both the direct and indirect causes of economic harm are evaluated, and the combined impact of all sanctions and overcompliance is assessed together, rather than looking at any single country’s rules in isolation.⁵⁹ Preliminary monitoring through the tool has covered health, food, water and sanitation, education, cultural rights, employment and social protection, services and infrastructure, and humanitarian assistance.⁶⁰ Engagement has been uneven, as submissions have come principally from States under sanctions.⁶¹ Previous mandate holders have thus identified an evidence base that remains to be widened. The tool provides a standing and confidential channel through which every stakeholder can contribute to widening it. 52 A/79/183, paras. 32–35. 53 Ibid., paras. 36–47. 54 A/HRC/60/36, para. 17. 55 Ibid., paras. 17–21. 56 A/HRC/42/46/Add.1, in particular para. 16. 57 Ibid., para. 13; see also A/74/165. 58 A/HRC/57/55, para. 12. 59 Ibid., paras. 19–28 and 39. 60 Ibid., paras. 41 and 56–69. 61 Ibid., paras. 29–33, 81 and 82. GE.26-10827

58. A/HRC/57/55, para. 12. ↩
59. Ibid., paras. 19–28 and 39. ↩
60. Ibid., paras. 41 and 56–69. ↩
61. Ibid., paras. 29–33, 81 and 82. ↩

The present report has taken stock of what has been established through work under the mandate over 11 years and has set the direction for the next phase. The record it draws together describes a human cost that can now be counted, in lives lost, in development gains reversed and in futures narrowed, and it falls overwhelmingly on people who hold no power over the disputes that produced it. That cost is the reason the mandate exists, and reducing it is the guiding objective of the Special Rapporteur’s work.

Overcompliance stands at the centre of that account. The harm described in the present report travels less through the formal text of measures than through the decisions of financial institutions, insurers, suppliers and platforms that retreat beyond anything that the measures demand, and it therefore reaches people and transactions that no measure was written to touch. Because no State defends that outcome, it is also the ground on which cooperation is most available, and the Special Rapporteur will pursue it through sustained engagement with States, stakeholders, businesses and humanitarian actors.

The consequences fall on food, health, education and other fundamental rights, profoundly affecting daily life. They fall unevenly, and hardest on those least able to absorb them, and, in turn, contribute to displacement and pressure on migration routes. The Special Rapporteur will keep that differentiated picture at the centre of her analysis, with particular attention to refugees and displaced persons, migrants and minorities, including religious minorities, and to communities whose vulnerability precedes the measures and is deepened by them.

Pathways to remedy and restitution remain largely closed. Those affected too often cannot obtain meaningful review of the measures that affect them, cannot afford or even lawfully pay for representation and cannot access the international avenues for remedy. The Special Rapporteur will treat effective remedy as the test of every other commitment, will give particular weight to due process and to the questions raised by the freezing and confiscation of assets and will carry forward the normative work already before the Human Rights Council.

Humanitarian action must function when it matters most. It has been shown in the present report that exemptions that exist on paper too often fail in crisis, when licensing is slow, payment channels close and the burden of proving the humanitarian character of assistance falls on those delivering it. The Special Rapporteur will engage with humanitarian organizations, financial institutions and licensing authorities to ensure that assistance in emergencies moves at the speed of need and that the standing humanitarian exemption established by the Security Council finds its counterpart in unilateral practice.

Measures that reverse development, depress growth and push States deeper into debt determine the conditions of collective life for populations that have no voice in their adoption, and they engage the right of peoples to pursue their own economic, social and cultural development. The Special Rapporteur will examine these effects, including the accumulation of debt under prolonged measures, as questions of self-determination and not only of economics.

Restrictions on access to advanced technologies, including semiconductors, artificial intelligence and digital connectivity infrastructure, increasingly determine access to the tools of modern economic and social life, and their human rights implications remain largely unexamined. The Special Rapporteur will bring them within the established analytical framework of the mandate, extending the attention already given to the digital domain, and she will do so with the same rigour applied throughout the present report, ensuring that findings follow from the evidence.

The way forward runs through participation and dialogue. Over her tenure, the Special Rapporteur will incorporate the commitments established in the present report into her thematic work, official country visits, calls for input, technical and academic engagement and continued strengthening of instruments developed under the mandate.

The Special Rapporteur expresses her appreciation to all States and stakeholders that engaged with her in her first consultations as mandate holder, whether in group or bilateral formats. She regards this engagement as a promising start to a sustained dialogue around work under the mandate. She invites States and all relevant stakeholders, including international organizations, civil society, national statistical institutions, research bodies, academia, private actors and affected populations, to sustain that engagement.