|
برای خواندن این مطلب به فارسی اینجا را کلیک کنید
With the recent reimposition of UN “snapback” sanctions, Iran is once again facing intensified economic isolation, which has already been observed thus far in major currency devaluation. These measures, far from targeting only the state, have for four decades, undermined the rights of ordinary Iranians, threatening their livelihood, access to health, and basic dignity. What is often framed as political pressure has instead become a systematic human rights issue.
Consider the case of a child living with epidermolysis bullosa (EB), a rare skin disease requiring specialized bandages. When a European supplier stopped shipments due to banking restrictions and fear of U.S. penalties, the child’s wounds had to be treated with inferior substitutes that caused pain and infection. This case is emblematic of how financial and banking sanctions obstruct access to essential medicines and supplies, even when exemptions exist on paper.
A recent study from Dr. By Mohammad Reza Farzanegan and Dr. Nader Habibi highlights how Western sanctions on Iran have been a strategic failure, as they have devastated the country’s middle class – the very group most likely to support reform and moderation – while leaving the ruling elite largely insulated. Using a “synthetic control” model to compare Iran with similar economies not under sanctions, the authors found that sanctions imposed between 2012 to 2019 caused a major contraction of Iran’s middle class, making it 28 points smaller than it should have been by 2019. This collapse stemmed from lost foreign investment, the decline of small and medium businesses due to disrupted trade, and rampant inflation that eroded savings and fixed incomes. The net effect, they find, has been to weaken the social forces that could push for change, while strengthening hardliners and giving the government a convenient scapegoat for the country’s economic suffering.
The sanction regime against Iran began in 1979, with the U.S. freezing assets after the hostage crisis, and has since expanded through the 1990s and 2000s into a structural blockade on Iran’s economy. The 2015 nuclear deal (JCPOA) briefly eased restrictions, but the U.S. withdrawal in 2018 restored “maximum pressure” measures, including cutting Iranian banks from SWIFT and sanctioning the Central Bank of Iran. Europe attempted to create humanitarian trade channels like INSTEX and Switzerland’s SHTA, but these mechanisms either collapsed or operated far below the scale of Iran’s needs.
On paper, food and medicine are exempt from sanctions, but in practice, over-compliance by banks and companies has paralyzed even lawful transactions. Reports by Human Rights Watch and repeated warnings by UN experts confirm that sanctions have disrupted supply chains for life-saving drugs such as chemotherapy medicines, insulin pens, and clotting factors. Shortages of Pegaspargase, Mercaptopurine, and Vinblastine—all on the WHO’s essential medicines list—illustrate how patients are left at risk despite humanitarian carve-outs.
These outcomes amount to serious human rights violations under international law. The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights obligates states to protect the right to life, the right to health, and the right to development. When sanctioning states knowingly impose measures that predictably cause shortages of medicine and food, and fail to correct the harm, those sanctions become more than political leverage—they are direct violations of human rights that impose collective punishment on the civilian population. In Iran, the evidence is stark: EB patients denied proper bandages, cancer patients losing access to chemotherapy, diabetics forced into unsafe black markets for insulin, thalassemia and hemophilia patients facing life-threatening gaps in treatment, and COVID-19 vaccine procurement obstructed by financial restrictions.
The impact extends beyond health care. Sanctions have weakened Iran’s economy, reducing oil revenues, blocking investment, and fueling chronic inflation. The World Bank estimates that nearly 20 percent of Iranians now live in poverty, with the harshest effects falling on low-income families. While corruption and mismanagement inside Iran compound these problems, sanctions amplify the crisis, turning economic hardship into widespread human suffering.
In 2025, Iran remains under some of the heaviest sanctions in the world. Humanitarian exemptions exist in theory, but without safe and functional payment channels, they are meaningless for patients and families who cannot access essential goods. Independent documentation—from UN experts, Human Rights Watch, and medical associations—demonstrates that the so-called “collateral damage” of sanctions is in fact systematic harm that violates the dignity and survival of millions of Iranians.
The continuation and expansion of broad-based sanctions with extensive impacts on civilians represents a grave injustice. The burden of these sanctions are not felt equally in Iranian society, as elites are much better positioned to weather scarcity and rising inflation than the lower and middle classes.
Such measures raise serious concerns under international humanitarian law and international human rights law, particularly Articles 11 and 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), which guarantee the right to an adequate standard of living, including food and housing, and the right to the highest attainable standard of health. They also conflict with the Geneva Conventions’ prohibition on collective punishment and the UN Charter’s obligations to uphold peace and security.
NIAC stresses that sanctions which systematically deprive people of medicine, food, and economic security are indefensible and must be condemned. NIAC extends solidarity to the Iranian people, who are the unannounced, biggest victims of political disputes beyond their control, and calls on the United States, Europe, and the international community to end collective punishment and implement genuine sanctions relief. Exemptions on paper are not enough—what is urgently needed are real, secure humanitarian channels for medicine and food, transparency for banks and insurers, and continuous human rights impact assessments. Without these, sanctions will continue to function as broad violations of human rights, with ordinary Iranians paying the heaviest price.
|
