Miguel Díaz-Canel speaks during a UN General Assembly in New York in an archive image. Spencer Platt (Getty Images)
The United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly on Thursday to condemn the United States’ economic blockade of Cuba for the 31st consecutive year. Of the organization’s 193 members, 187 voted in favor, two against (the United States and Israel) and one, Ukraine, abstained.
So it turns out that more than the final count, similar to recent years (in 2019 there were the same number of yes votes and two fewer, 185 last year), knows the identity of the text’s critics. The rejection of the USA, which imposed the blockade against Cuba in 1960, was taken for granted. Israel, which appears to reciprocate Washington’s full support in its war against Hamas, rejected the proposal entirely. The abstention of Ukraine, a fellow country at war, which last week abstained from voting on an Assembly resolution calling for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza, stood out from the sea of green votes displayed on the Assembly voting screen.
Before the vote, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez called on the organization’s plenary session to support “reason and justice,” the UN Charter and international law, exclaiming: “Let Cuba live in peace; Cuba would be better without the blockade.” Rodríguez claimed that the blockade was “an act of genocide (…), a deliberate act of economic warfare” aimed at weakening the Cuban economy, causing hunger and despair among the population and overthrowing the government.
Unlike those of the Security Council, the resolutions of the General Assembly are not binding, but reflect the general opinion and also represent, to a certain extent, a moral thermometer that, year after year, gives Cuba a new reason to condemn the punishment and demonstrate the isolation of those it faces by the United States, as well as the dire consequences that the blockade is having on the population. Above all, the resolution reflects a global consensus on this issue. A position, some experts remind us, that is not just a question of international relations, but is deeply rooted in international law and the principles of the United Nations.
The General Assembly’s decision also complies with the principles of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, which emphasizes the importance of fulfilling contractual obligations in good faith and, in particular, the prohibition of coercive measures to oblige a State to submit to its sovereign rights.
Therefore, the impact of the Helms-Burton Act, which codified the US embargo, could challenge the principle of state sovereignty and freedom of trade and navigation enshrined in customary international law, experts say.
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The blockade was imposed in 1960 following the revolution led by Fidel Castro and the nationalization of the property of American citizens and businesses. Two years later it was strengthened. The resolution “emphasizes the need to end the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the United States of America against Cuba.”
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