Sanctions & International Law
by Lee Loe

Through the years, people have been concerned about the condition of human beings, individually and collectively. Some have written laws spelling out the rights of humanhood. Among them are the following international laws which apply to the use of economic sanctions. 
Charter of Economic Rights & Duties of States, UN General Assembly, 1974: [N]o state may use or encourage the use of economic, political or any other type of measures to coerce another State in order to obtain from it the subordination of the exercise of its sovereign rights or to secure from it advantages of any kind.
Protocol 1 Additional to the Geneva Convention, 1977, Part IV, Section 1, Chapter III, Article 54: 1. Starvation of civilians as a method of warfare is prohibited.
2. It is prohibited to attack, destroy, remove, or render useless objects indispensable to the agricultural areas for the production of foodstuffs, crops, livestock, drinking water installations and supplies, and irrigation works, for the specific purpose of denying them for their sustenance value to the civilian population or to the adverse Party, whatever the motive, whether in order to starve out civilians, to cause them to move away, or for any other motive.
UN General Assembly Resolution 44/215, December 22, 1989. Economic measures as a means of political and economic coercion against developing countries: Calls upon the developed countries to refrain from exercising political coercion through the application of economic instruments with the purpose of inducing changes in the economic or social systems, as well as in the domestic or foreign policies, of other countries;
Reaffirms that developed countries should refrain from threatening or applying trade and financial restrictions, blockades, embargoes, and other economic sanctions, incompatible with the provisions of the Charter of the United Nations and in violation of undertakings contracted multilaterally and bilaterally, against developing countries as a form of political and economic coercion that affects their political, economic, and social development.
International Conference on Nutrition, World Declaration on Nutrition, Food and Agriculture Organization/World Health Organization, 1992: We recognize that access to nutritionally adequate and safe food is a right of each individual. We affirm . . . that food must not be used as a tool for political pressure.
UN General Assembly, December 1997: The UN General Assembly, representing 185 nations, voted that starvation of civilians is unlawful. 
The above international laws are from the book, The Children ARE Dying edited by former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark.  The US, in its prosecution of the sanctions on Iraq and other states, is also breaking its on law.
International Terrorism, as defined by the US legal code (Title 18'2331): (1) involve violent acts or acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the US or of any State, or that would be a criminal violation if committed within the jurisdiction of the US or of any State;
(2) appear to be intended: (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or
(3) occur primarily outside the territorial jurisdiction of the US, or transcend national boundaries in terms of the means by which they are accomplished, the persons they appear intended to intimidate or coerce, or the locale in which their perpetrators operate or seek asylum; . . .

On January 18, 1998 Houston lawyer and peace activist Frances "Sissy" Farenthold explained: "The deaths of civilians in World War I was, maybe, 10% of the total casualties; in WW II, it was 50%; in the Vietnam War, it was 85%; but with economic sanctions which impact food and medicines, 100% of the victims are civilians." She was speaking at Houston's Rothko Chapel at a service organized by Pax Christi and the Fellowship of Reconciliation to remember the beginning of the bombing of Iraq in 1991.
The UN is breaking its own laws with the execution of the sanctions on Iraq. Please note that  Protocol 1 Additional to the Geneva Convention describes as against the law the manner in which the Gulf War was prosecuted and the sections of Iraqi society which were deliberately and systematically destroyed.