The Trump administration’s playbook for Cuba is clear: intensify the hardship and suffering to such an extreme degree of economic collapse and crisis that there will be an uprising. If that doesn’t succeed, then we can expect a military intervention along the lines of what occurred in Venezuela.
While the United States often claims the Cuban government violates the human rights of its citizens, it is the U.S. that is perpetrating human rights violations that threaten the lives and basic welfare of Cubans.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has made no secret of his intent to bring about regime change in Cuba. But to overthrow the government of a foreign nation is a direct violation of international law. The United Nations charter states, “All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.”
Military intervention, like we saw in the U.S. intervention in Venezuela and which may now happen to pursue the indictment of former Cuban president Raúl Castro, 95, would also violate Cuba’s sovereignty. Seeking regime change by creating a humanitarian crisis does so as well. The fundamental principle of national sovereignty and the prohibition of its violation are the bedrock of international law and global security.
Rubio dismisses the role of the U.S. economic sanctions in Cuba’s humanitarian crisis. But the severity of the sanctions, especially the fuel blockade, has directly caused or severely worsened this crisis. The Torricelli Act and the Helms-Burton Act, adopted in the 1990s, prohibit U.S. nationals from engaging in trade with Cuba. They also extend well beyond Cuba, penalizing companies from Spain, Mexico, Italy or other countries that import Cuban goods, invest in Cuban enterprises, deliver goods by ship or sell their products to Cuba.
Violating international law
Such extraterritorial measures violate international law. Each year, since 1992, the United Nations General Assembly has — overwhelmingly — joined Cuba in denouncing the U.S. for these measures.
The fuel blockade that has been in effect since January has been catastrophic.
Without fuel, the electrical grid cannot operate. Without electricity, the water pumps driving Havana’s water system cannot operate. Without gasoline, the country’s transportation system has largely collapsed. Without diesel, farmers can no longer use tractors and now use oxen to plow their fields. Without gasoline, trucks cannot transport cooking gas to the provinces, and people are forced to use charcoal and wood scraps to cook their food. Without electricity, hospitals can no longer provide anything other than bare emergency services. Without electricity, very shortly, Cuba’s water treatment plants will not be able to function; we can expect that this will result in epidemics of cholera and water-borne diseases.
U.S. sanctions have targeted every major component of Cuba’s economy. Cuba is highly dependent on maritime shipping for all imports and all exports. But the U.S prohibits any ship — not just U.S. ships — from unloading goods in the U.S. for six months after a ship docks in Cuba for trade, with some exceptions. In addition, the U.S. has blacklisted numerous ships transporting goods, particularly fuel, to Cuba, creating risks of severe penalties for anyone in the world who then uses those ships to transport their own goods.
A squeeze on banks
In addition, the U.S. has largely forced Cuba out of the global banking system. As a result, it is nearly impossible for Cuba to find banks that will process its transactions — to buy food and fuel, to buy spare parts for its infrastructure and more. The measures announced by the Trump administration on May 1 increased the risk for international banks even further; the remaining banks in Cuba are now withdrawing.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has found the embargo has undermined Cubans’ human rights, including the rights to food, health and education. International humanitarian law prohibits measures that compromise access to food and other necessities.
Under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, genocide may take place by “[d]eliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.” It is also a war crime to “intentionally us[e] starvation of civilians as a method of warfare by depriving them of objects indispensable to their survival.”
If Rubio and the rest of the Trump administration are concerned about the human rights of the Cuban people, then they should not themselves cause widespread and catastrophic human rights violations and untold suffering.
Joy Gordon, PhD, is the Ignacio Ellacuría Society of Jesus chair in social ethics in the Philosophy Department at Loyola University Chicago. James Thuo Gathii, who has a doctorate in juridical science, is the Wing-Tat Lee chair in international law and a professor of law at Loyola University Chicago.