When the US Uses Its Power To Get Paid

The astronomical fine that the BNP Paribas bank must pay to U.S. authorities reveals a serious legal and political scandal: the embargo laws, in whose name the U.S. places sanctions on all who don’t conform to its foreign policy. This practice now seems so commonplace that most of us are not troubled by it.

Yet, the unilateral U.S. policy of economic sanctions for a growing number of countries is a very regrettable practice. The only entity that should be able to do this is the United Nations, and specifically the U.N. Security Council, which has the sole authority to take such measures under Article 41 of Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter.

In 2013, the Security Council established 13 sanctions regimes: al-Qaida, North Korea, the Ivory Coast, Guinea-Bissau, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Liberia, Libya, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia (including Eritrea and pirates), Sudan and the Taliban. But that’s not enough for the United States. On its own, has placed sanctions on around 70 countries, in a more or less targeted manner.

A Secondary Boycott

This recourse to economic sanctions is a common form of coercive diplomacy that the U.S. uses at the whim of its current political and economic interests. Thus, we have an embargo against Cuba in response to the persistent demands of the powerful anti-Castro lobby, as well as sanctions against Iran that stem from 1996, when the D’Amato-Kennedy Act sought to protect American investments against foreign competition in the Iranian energy sector, such as Total.

But more shocking is the extraterritorial effect of this unilateral legislation. It amounts to a secondary boycott: U.S. authorities punish the citizens of third-party countries that want to do business with a country the U.S. has decided to sanction. In other words, the U.S. legislates for the entire world in defiance of international law.

Several countries and the European Union have protested and condemned these measures. On Oct. 16, 2002, the U.N. General Assembly adopted a resolution by 133 to 2 — the dissenters were the U.S. and Israel and with two abstentions, Australia and Latvia — expressing concern that these measures amount to “repercussions of coercive extraterritorial economic measures imposed unilaterally in the areas of commerce and financial and economic cooperation,” notably because they “seriously impede free trade and the free movement of capital at the regional and international levels.”*

Transactions Compliant with French Rules

Thus, the General Assembly called for the “repeal of the unilateral and extraterritorial laws requiring companies and nationals of third-party countries to comply with coercive economic measures contrary to international law.”*

Needless to say, the U.S. has never heeded this call. Its sovereignty takes precedence over all other considerations, and compliance with U.S. rules for any transaction made with dollars is necessary. BNP Paribas could well argue that its transactions conformed to French, European and U.N. rules, but the U.S. position is likely to remain inflexible.

This sets a very bad example for the community of countries, and especially for those powers whose hegemonic ambitions the U.S. has denounced, Russia and China: Why should these countries behave any differently? Unilateralism and extraterritoriality are clearly unacceptable if you want to have a cooperative world. It is urgent that the EU and others speak up.

*Editor’s Note: This quote, though accurately translated, could not be sourced.