Advantage Two is Human Rights

Advantage Two is Human Rights

The embargo is destroying human rights in Cuba – denies people access to basic needs, services, and universally agreed upon rights.Coll 07 Professor of Law and President, International Human Rights Law Institute, DePaul College of Law [Alberto R. Coll, Harming Human Rights in the Name of Promoting Them: The Case of the Cuban Embargo, UCLA Journal of International Law and Foreign Affairs, Fall, 2007, 12 UCLA J. Int'l L. & For. Aff. 199]

The Cuban embargo is not a limited set of economic sanctions affecting a few carefully targeted areas of Cuba's government and society. Instead, it is a comprehensive program that prohibits virtually all American trade, investment, travel, cultural and human contact with Cuba outside of a few narrow exceptions. Moreover, throughout the embargo's 47-year history, different U.S. administrations have worked aggressively to expand the embargo's extraterritorial reach in order to pressure as many countries as possible to reduce their contacts with Cuba. The embargo's extensive extraterritorial reach and power as well as its disproportionate nature are magnified by Cuba's weakness as a small Caribbean island of 11 million people, its peculiar geographical location only 90 miles from the United States, and the U.S.'s own international economic and financial preeminence. As currently structured, the embargo has comprehensive, widespread, and indiscriminate effects on the economic, social, and family conditions of the Cuban people that cause it to violate widely recognized human rights norms as well as the basic obligation of states to ensure that sanctions imposed for the sake of promoting human rights do not have the opposite effect of harming the human rights of innocent people . n259

Apologists for the embargo point out that the embargo has only a limited impact on the Cuban economy because Cuba is free to trade with virtually every other country in the world. n260 This argument overlooks two key [*236] issues. First, the U.S. government has not contented itself with denying the benefits of trade and investment to Cuba. Instead, throughout most of the embargo's history, U.S. administrations have exerted enormous pressures on foreign governments and companies to discourage all economic contact with Cuba. A typical example occurred in the early 1990s when Cuba, then in the midst of a severe economic depression caused by the collapse of its ally, the Soviet Union, attempted to modernize its antiquated 40-year old telephone network. Grupos Domo, a Mexican-based conglomerate with substantial economic ties to the United States, began negotiations with Cuba over what would have been a multi-billion dollar deal but eventually withdrew from negotiations as a result of enormous pressure by the U.S. government. n261 Ultimately, Cuba found a group of willing international investor partners, most of whom insisted on anonymity in order to avoid possible American retaliation. Thus, the reach of the U.S. embargo extends significantly beyond U.S.-Cuba trade relations, and negatively impacts Cuba's relations with other countries as well.Second, since Congress passed the Cuban Democracy Act in 1992 and the subsequent Helms-Burton Act of 1996, the embargo has sharply increased its extraterritorial reach. Thousands of foreign companies that could trade with Cuba before 1992 are no longer allowed to do so by virtue of being subsidiaries of U.S. corporations. Although the European Union and other U.S. allies responded to the Helms-Burton Act by enacting "blocking statutes" and "claw-back" provisions n262, Helms-Burton has nonetheless had a [*237] chilling effect on trade and investment with Cuba. n263 Thus, the embargo's economic impact must be measured not only in terms of the way it has isolated Cuba from U.S. markets but also by its effect on the willingness of many private international entities to do business with Cuba.

Because the embargo has such far-reaching effects on foreign trade and investment with Cuba, its effects on human rights are similarly far-reaching , encompassing such areas as public health, nutrition, education, culture, and even fundamental family rights. In general, economic sanctions affect education in the sanctioned country by decreasing access to supplies, which ultimately leads to the deterioration of infrastructure . n264 The Cuban government estimates that the embargo has cost Cuba an estimated average of $ 2.19 billion a year since 1959, a figure that may be quite conservative in light of several factors. n265 First, the embargo is unusually comprehensive and affects every area of Cuba's economic life. Second, it deprives Cuba of the benefits from economies of scale and geographical advantages associated with the U.S. market. Third, the dollar's role as the international currency of choice, the preeminent role of U.S. banks in international trade especially in the western hemisphere, and the embargo's extraterritorial reach combine to [*238] increase substantially the costs to Cuba of trading with many other countries.

The most recent United Nations report on human rights in Cuba referred to the U.S. embargo as one of the "factors hindering the realization of human rights in Cuba," and noted that:The restrictions imposed by the embargo help to deprive Cuba of vital access to medicines, new scientific and medical technology, food, chemical water treatment and electricity. The disastrous effects of the embargo in terms of the economic, social and cultural rights of the Cuban people have been denounced by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, the United Nations Children's Fund, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the World Health Organization ... . n266Thus, though the embargo is now promoted as a means of improving human rights, the embargo has had the opposite effect of harming human rights.

The embargo’s attempts to boost human rights has backfired – removing the embargo would boost human rights, force the regime to stop abusing them, and provide the impetus to improve them through internal change.Amash 12 International Relations at UC San Diego [Brandon Amash, Evaluating the Cuban Embargo, Prospect: Journal of International Affairs at UCSD, http://prospectjournal.org/2012/07/23/evaluating-the-cuban-embargo/]

Cuba has a long record of violating the fundamental human rights of freedom of opinion, thought, expression, and the right to dissent; the Universal Declaration of Human Rights clearly protects these rights in Articles 19 and 21. Article 19 states that “everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.” Article 21 similarly states that “everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country […]” (UDHR). The purpose of this proposal is to provide the United States with an alternative foreign policy approach toward Cuba that will improve human rights conditions and foster democracy in the country. Namely, I argue that the embargo policy should be abandoned and replaced with a policy based on modeling appropriate behavior, providing support and resources to developing democratic systems and encouraging participation in multilateral institutions. In the following pages, I will describe the historical context of the situation, critique the embargo policy and advocate for the normalization of relations with Cuba as a stronger approach to improving human rights and espousing democracy.It is essential to carefully consider this proposal as a viable policy alternative for promoting democracy and protecting human rights in Cuba because the current embargo policy has proven to be ineffective in

advancing these goals. Developing more effective approaches to similar situations of democratization and promotion of ideals has been a foreign policy goal of the United States since before the Cold War. However, despite the vast shifts in the international climate following the end of the Cold War, U.S. policy towards Cuba has not adapted. As such, this proposal highlights the need for a fresh policy toward our neighbor and bitter rival.§ 2. Historical Context of the Problem:The United States and Cuba have been on unstable terms since the colonization of both countries by the British and Spanish Empires, respectively. Following Cuba’s independence from Spain and the ensuing Spanish-American War, Cuban-American relations began to deteriorate: Cubans resented American intervention in their independence, afraid of leaving one empire only to be conquered by another. However, the human rights violations in question did not become a problem until after the Cuban Revolution in the 1950s, following the rise of Fidel Castro’s communist regime. After the revolution, Cuban laws imposed limits on the freedoms of expression and association, effectively undermining the basic human rights of freedom of opinion and dissent. According to Clark, De Fana and Sanchez, “given the totalitarian nature of the country, in which all communications media are in the hands of the omnipotent State-Party, it is physically impossible to express any dissenting political opinion […]” (Clark 65). Threatened by these blatantly antidemocratic policies, America had to do something.The United States placed trade embargoes, economic sanctions, and travel bans on Cuba in an attempt to combat the communist regime and human rights violations (Carter 334). Today, diplomatic relations with Cuba remain extremely strained, although America’s embargo policy has tightened and relaxed in concert with its domestic political climate. Most recently, President Obama has reversed “tighter restrictions on Cuban American family travel and remittances,” as well as announcing “that U.S. telecommunications companies may seek licenses to do business in Cuba” (Carter 336). However, despite the ever-evolving policy and the fluid international climate, little progress has been made in improving the human rights situation in Cuba, let alone the overall promotion of democratic ideals. The embargo policy is based on the idea “that economic denial will bring about continued economic failure in Cuba, thereby creating popular dissatisfaction with the government while simultaneously weakening the government’s ability to repress this popular dissent, leading to the destabilization of the regime and, ultimately, its collapse” (Seaman 39). In the following section, I will explain how these objectives have not been realized.§ 3. Critique of Policy Options:Ayubi, Bissell, Korsah and Lerner suggest that “the purpose of sanctions is to bring about behavior seen as in conformity with the goals and standards of a society and to prevent behavior that is inconsistent with these goals and standards” (Ayubi 1). These goals and standards, in the

Cuban context, would be democracy and a vested interest in human rights. However, the sanctions that the United States has placed on Cuba in the past half century have done little to address the systematic violations of human rights in Cuba.§ 3.1: The American embargo is not sufficient to democratize Cuba and improve human rights. Without the help and support of multilateral institutions, economic sanctions on Cuba have been ineffective. As other states trade and interact freely with Cuba, the lack of partnership with America is only a minor hindrance to Cuba’s economy. Moreover, the sanctions are detrimental to the United States economy, as Cuba could potentially be a geostrategic economic partner. More importantly, since economic sanctions are not directly related to the goal of improved human rights, the effect of these sanctions is also unrelated; continued economic sanctions against Cuba create no incentive for the Cuban government to promote better human rights, especially when the sanctions do not have international support. Empirically, it is clear that since its inception, the policy has not succeeded in promoting democratization or improving human rights. Something more must be done in order to improve the situation.§ 3.2: American sanctions during the Cold War strengthened Castro’s ideological position and created opportunities for involvement by the Soviet Union, thereby decreasing the likelihood of democratization and improvement in human rights. Cuba’s revolution could not have come at a worse time for America. The emergence of a communist state in the western hemisphere allowed the Soviet Union to extend its influence, and the United States’ rejection of Cuba only widened the window of opportunity for Soviet involvement. The embargo also became a scapegoat for the Castro administration, which laid blame for poor human rights conditions on the embargo policy itself (Fontaine 18 – 22). Furthermore, as Ratliff and Fontaine suggest, isolating Cuba as an enemy of democracy during the Cold War essentially made the goals of democratization in the country unachievable (Fontaine 30). While the embargo may have been strategic during the Cold War as a bulwark against communism, the long-term effects of the policy have essentially precluded the possibility for democracy in Cuba. Even after the end of the Cold War, communism persists in Cuba and human rights violations are

systemic; America’s policy has not achieved its goals and has become a relic of the Cold War era. The prospects for democracy and improvement in human rights seem as bleak as ever. § 3.3: The current policy may drag the United States into a military conflict with Cuba. Military conflict may be inevitable in the future if the embargo’s explicit goal — creating an insurrection in Cuba to overthrow the government — is achieved, and the United States may not be ready to step in. As Ratliff and Fontaine detail, “Americans are not prepared to commit the military resources […]” (Fontaine 57), especially after unpopular wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Much like America’s current situation with isolated rogue states such as Iran and North Korea, Cuba’s isolation may also lead to war for other reasons, like the American occupation of Guantanamo Bay. These consequences are inherently counterproductive for the democratization of Cuba and the improvement of human rights.§ 4. Policy Recommendations:Although America’s previous policies of intervention, use of force and economic sanctions have all failed at achieving democratization in Cuba, not all options have been exhausted. One policy alternative for promoting democracy and human rights in Cuba that the United States has not attempted is the exact opposite of the approach it has taken for the past half century. Namely, the United States should lift the embargo on Cuba and reopen diplomatic relations in order to work internationally on improving human rights in Cuba. Unless Cuba, as a rogue state, is isolated internationally, rather than merely by the United States, the human rights situation in Cuba may never improve. A fresh policy of engagement towards Cuba has been delayed long enough.

§ 4.1: Reopening diplomatic relations with Cuba will decrease the chances of conflict and will promote cooperation between the two countries economically, politically and socially. Diplomatic relations and negotiations have proven to be effective in the past in similar situations, such as the renewed relations between Egypt and Israel following the Camp David Accords. As Huddleston and Pascual state, “a great lesson of democracy is that it cannot be imposed; it must come from within. […] Our policy should therefore encompass the political, economic, and diplomatic tools to enable the Cuban people to engage in and direct the politics of their country” (Huddleston 14). The mobilization of the Cuban people on the issues of democratization, which are inherently linked to the human rights violations in Cuba, is a first step to producing changes in Cuba.

American engagement with the Cuban people, currently lacking under the embargo policy, will provide the impetus in Cuban society to produce regime change . Furthermore, integrating U.S.-Cuba relations on a multilateral level will ease the burden on the United States in fostering democracy and a better human rights record in the country, as other states will be more involved in the process. In contrast to a policy of isolation, normalized relations will allow America to engage Cuba in new areas, opening the door for democratization and human rights improvements from within the Cuban state itself.

§ 4.2: With diplomatic relations in place, the United States may directly promote human rights in the country through negotiations, conferences, arbitration and mediation. Providing the support, resources, and infrastructure to promote democratic systems in Cuba could produce immense improvements to the human rights situation in the nation. Normalizing diplomatic relations with the state will also allow America to truly support freedom of opinion and expression in Cuba, which it cannot currently promote under the isolationist policy. Furthermore, through diplomatic relations and friendly support, Cuba will be more willing to participate in the international system, as well as directly with the United States, as an ally. As the United States, along with the international community as a whole, helps and supports Cuba’s economic growth, Cuban society will eventually push for greater protection of human rights.§ 4.3: Lifting economic sanctions will improve economic growth in Cuba, which correlates to democratization. Empirical evidence shows that a strong economy is correlated to democracy. According to the

Modernization Theory of democratization, this correlation is a causal link: economic growth directly leads to democratization . Lifting the current economic sanctions on Cuba and working together to improve economic situations in

the state will allow their economy to grow, increasing the likelihood of democracy in the state, and thus promoting greater freedom of expression, opinion and dissent.§ 4.4: A policy of engagement will be a long-term solution to promoting democracy and improving human rights in Cuba. This proposal, unique in that it is simply one of abandoning an antiquated policy and normalizing relations to be like those with any other country, does not present any large obstacles to implementation, either in the short run or the long run. The main challenge is in continuing to support such a policy and maintaining the normal diplomatic, economic and social relations with a country that has been isolated for such a long period of time. Although effects of such a policy may be difficult to determine in the short term, promoting democracy and improving human rights in Cuba are long-term solutions. As discussed above, engagement with the Cuban government and society, along with support from the international community, will provide the spark and guidance for the Cuban people to support and promote democracy, and thus give greater attention to human rights violations.§ 5. Conclusions:Instead of continued economic sanctions on Cuba, the United States should reopen diplomatic relations with Cuba, work multilaterally and use soft power to promote democracy and greater attention to human rights. This policy approach will decrease the hostility between the United States and Cuba, and cause Cuba to be more willing to participate internationally with attention to human rights violations. After the end of the Cold War, United States foreign policy has found new directions, and the embargo, as a relic of a different time, must be removed should the United States wish to gain any true ground in promoting human rights in Cuba.

The embargo itself is a human rights violation and failureHernandez-Truyol 09 Mabie, Levin & Mabie Professor of Law, University of Florida, Levin College of Law [Berta E. Hernandez-Truyol, Embargo or Blockade - The Legal and Moral Dimensions of the U.S. Economic Sanctions on Cuba, 4 Intercultural Hum. Rts. L. Rev. 53 (2009)]

V Conclusion: The Human (Rights) and Moral Dimension This essay has presented the history of economic sanctions against Cuba, analyzed the questionable legality of the sanctions, and detailed the effects of the sanctions. In conclusion, I want to problematize further the legality of the sanctions under international law. To be sure, the U.S. commitment to the WTO limits its ability to refuse to trade absent a legitimate, allowed concern. To use the national security claim vis-a-vis Cuba simply does not pass the laugh test; although the recent talks with Venezuela and the Russian fleet might cause a reconsideration of that position. Moreover, save for the regulations, which in any case are limited in light of the entirety of the Toricelli and Helms Burton laws, the WTO is a "later in time" statement of the law which should then govern. The other aspect of legality involves the human rights idea. Here, the real impact on real people of the embargo borders on unconscionable. As the essay has described, the actions have taken a human toll; they affect health, hunger, education, nutrition quite directly. They also affect the right to travel and the right to family life of Cubans in the U.S. who can no longer visit their relatives with regularity nor spend time with them in either times of joy or times of need - although this has been changed dramatically by President Obama' s policy shift.

Economic sanctions are valuable tools for protecting human rights. The U.S. has used sanctions to discourage human rights violations. Examples include the U.S. ban of South African gold Krugerrands in 1985 to protest apartheid148, the blockage of Nicaraguan imports to deter terrorist acts of the Sandinista regime,149 the prohibition of foreign aid to Burma to oppose the government's use of forced labor,'50 and the 1989 denial of MFN status against China to protest the killing of pro-democracy protestors in Tiananmen Square to name a few.' 51 The U.S. is not alone in this approach. In fact, human rights violations have resulted in states jointly taking economic sanctions through the UN Security Council. Examples include NATO states' 1986 sanctions against Libya as a result of Moammar Ghadafi's support for the terrorist killing of 279 passengers aboard a U.S. airline bombed over Lockerbie and 1990 Iraq sanctions for its invasion of Kuwait. The Cuba sanctions, however, reflect another aspect of economic sanctions: their deleterious and harmful effects on civil society, the innocent citizenry of the targeted country. By depriving citizens of the benefits of trade, of travel, of family life; by creating circumstances in which people's health, nutrition, standard of living and overall welfare are negatively affected, sanctions have effected serious denials of human rights - a moral if not legal failure.

Applying sanctions is an act of human rights violation – the consequences are knownMarks 99 Frangois-Xavier Bagnoud Professor of Health and Human Rights, Harvard School of Public Health [Stephen P. Marks, Economic Sanctions as Human Rights Violations: Reconciling Political and Public Health Imperatives, American Journal of Public Health, October 1999, Vol. 89, No. 10]

It is tempting to consider that because (a) the rights to an adequate standard of living, to physical and mental health, to just remuneration, to education, to family life, and to other related rights are universally recognized and (b) serious studies by public health experts substantiate the claim that these rights have been violated as a result of economic sanctions, then (c) the "senders" of sanctions regimes-that is, the governmental and intergovernmental decision makers in Congress, the White House, the UN Security Council and the OAS-are perpetrators of human rights violations. The CESR and Gibbons in her book on sanctions in Haiti come close to succumbing to that temptation, the former stressing that "the [Security] Council remains accountable to human rights principles regardless of the conduct of the Iraqi government"30 and the latter claiming that states that enforce sanctions in Haiti "inadvertently participated in violating the rights of Haitian citizens."31The identification of senders of sanctions with perpetrators of human rights violations is not so simple, for 2 reasons. First, as a matter of law, responsibility for a violation can only be attributed to a duty holder, in most cases a state that has ratified a treaty establishing the obligation in question, and neither the Security Council nor the UN in general is a party to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), or any other relevant convention. Moreover, treaties impose obligations on states to take measures within their jurisdiction- that is, within the national territory and, for a limited range of matters, for its nationals outside the territory-but not for foreigners in their own countries. Thus, the members of the Security Council have no treaty-based duty to ensure treaty rights for the citizens of Haiti, Iraq, Serbia, or other targeted countries.One can hold states accountable, however, for actions that defeat the object and purpose of a treaty to which they are a party (or even that they have signed and not yet ratified, as is the case with the United States with respect to the ICESCR), and the aim of protecting the human rights set out in the ICESCR is part of that object and purpose. Such is the intention of the following provision of the Maastricht guidelines, adopted by a group of 30 human rights experts in January 1997:19. The obligations of States to protect economic, social and cultural rights extend also to their participation in international organizations, where they act collectively. It is particularly important for States to use their influence to ensure that violations do not result from the programmes and policies of the organizations of which they are members.32The language is not that of firm obligation, but it is designed to acknowledge the importance of states' using their influence to prevent violations-for example, through decisions of the Security Council or the OAS to impose sanctions. There is, moreover, a duty upon the Security Council to "act in accordance with the purposes and principles of the United Nations,"33 among which is the purpose of "promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms for all."34 Significantly, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which monitors the application of the ICESCR, requires the state or entity imposing sanctions to take these rights "fully into account" when designing the sanctions regime, to monitor effectively the situation in the targeted country with respect to these rights, and to take steps "to respond to any disproportionate suffering experienced by vulnerable groups within the targeted country."35 In the case of Haiti, the UN and the OAS did take human rights into account by creating the Human Rights Civilian Observation Mission (MICIVIH), which Gibbons describes as "a positive action ... that was quite different in nature from the negative action of sanctions."36 However, she also notes that its mandate excluded economic,

social, and cultural rights, as a result of "pragmatic decisions" that "respect for Haitians' economic and social rights would be sacrificed for the sake of advancing their political and civil rights." This dilemma emerged in the functioning of MICIVIH's Medical Unit, an unprecedented addition to a human rights component of a peace operation, which ran into difficulty in trying to reconcile mission headquarters' efforts to restrict its role to documenting abuse of civil and political rights with the participating medical practitioners' duty to provide care when the situation called for medical assistance.37The second problem with the senders as- perpetrators argument is both moral and legal: Senders of sanctions cannot be held responsible unless they intentionally seek to violate the rights in question or pursue policies that are so blatantly harmful to those rights that they fail to meet a minimum standard of compliance. The humanitarian exemptions that have been voted with sanctions in almost every case, and the supplemental humanitarian assistance programs funded by the "senders," as well as their public statements of concern for the plight of civilian populations, make it difficult to find willful intent on the senders' part. Gibbons' reference to states "inadvertently" participating in violations,38 and the use she and Garfield make of "unintentionally" in their article in this issue of the Journal, are indicative of the problems of accountability.Nevertheless, the moral outrage of those who would like to hold senders of sanctions accountable as perpetrators of violations is justified, and passing blame to Saddam Hussein, Lt Gen Cedras, or Slobodan Milosevic is not enough. As a study commissioned by the UN concluded, "the amount of information available today on the devastating economic, social, and humanitarian impact of sanctions no longer permits [policymakers] to entertain the notion of 'unintended effects." ' 39 A member of the Security Council has declared that "it is disingenuous to talk of 'unintended side effects' when everybody knows that the sector most affected by sanctions, as presently applied, are precisely civilian populations. There is nothing surprising or unintended about it."40 His statement was in reaction to a "non-paper" (an informal document used as a flexible tool for negotiation) by the 5 permanent members of the Security Council (P-5) that insisted that sanctions regimes should "minimize unintended adverse side-effects of sanctions on the most vulnerable segments oftargeted countries."4l

Human Rights are an absolute good – must act to protect them in all instancesHuman Rights Watch 97 [An Introduction to the Human Rights Movement, http://www.hrweb.org/intro.html]

Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of [hu]mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people,Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law...These are the second and third paragraphs of the preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 10, 1948 without a dissenting vote. It is the first multinational declaration mentioning human rights by name, and the human rights movement has largely adopted it as a charter. I'm quoting them here because it states as well or better than anything I've read what human rights are and why they are important.The United Nations Charter, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and UN Human Rights convenants were written and implemented in the aftermath of the Holocaust, revelations coming from the Nuremberg war crimes trials, the Bataan Death March, the atomic bomb, and other horrors smaller in magnitude but not in impact on the individuals they affected. A whole lot of people in a number of countries had a crisis of conscience and found they could no longer look the other way while tyrants jailed, tortured, and killed their neighbors.In Germany, the Nazis first came for the communists, and I did not speak up, because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak up, because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak up, because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I did not speak up, because I was not a Catholic. Then they came for me... and by that time, there was no one to speak up for anyone.-- Martin Niemoeller, Pastor,German Evangelical (Lutheran) Church

Many also realized that advances in technology and changes in social structures had rendered war a threat to the continued existence of the human race. Large numbers of people in many countries lived under the control of tyrants, having no recourse but war to relieve often intolerable living conditions.

Unless some way was found to relieve the lot of these people, they could revolt and become the catalyst for another wide-scale and possibly nuclear war . For perhaps the first time, representatives from the majority of governments in the world came to the conclusion that basic human rights must be protected, not only for the sake of

the individuals and countries involved, but to preserve the human race .

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.-- Dwight D. EisenhowerPresident of the United States"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."-- Albert Einstein

Survival of the species is only possible by respecting Human RightsAnnas et al 02 Edward R. Utley Prof. and Chair Health Law @ Boston U. School of Public Health and Prof. SocioMedical Sciences and Community Science @ Boston U. School of Medicine and Prof. Law @ Boston U. School of Law [George, Lori Andrews, (Distinguished Prof. Law @ Chicago-Kent College of Law and Dir. Institute for Science, Law, and Technology @ Illinois Institute Tech), and Rosario M. Isasa, (Health Law and Biotethics Fellow @ Health Law Dept. of Boston U. School of Public Health), American Journal of Law & Medicine, “THE GENETICS REVOLUTION: CONFLICTS, CHALLENGES AND CONUNDRA: ARTICLE: Protecting the Endangered Human: Toward an International Treaty Prohibiting Cloning and Inheritable Alterations”, 28 Am. J. L. and Med. 151, L/N]

The development of the atomic bomb not only presented to the world for the first time the prospect of total annihilation, but also, paradoxically, led to a renewed emphasis on the "nuclear family," complete with its personal bomb shelter. The conclusion of World War II (with the dropping of the only two atomic bombs ever used in war) led to the recognition that world wars were now suicidal to the entire species and to the formation of the United Nations with the primary goal of preventing such wars. n2 Prevention, of course, must be based on the recognition that all humans are fundamentally the same, rather than on an emphasis on our differences. In the aftermath of the Cuban missile crisis, the closest the world has ever come to nuclear war, President John F. Kennedy, in an address to the former Soviet Union, underscored the necessity for recognizing similarities for our survival: [L]et us not be blind to our differences, but let us also direct attention to our common interests and the means by which those differences can be resolved . . . . For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal. n3 That we are all fundamentally the same, all human, all with the same dignity and rights, is at the core of the most important document to come out of World War II, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the two treaties that followed it (together known as the "International Bill of Rights"). n4 The recognition of universal human rights, based on human dignity and equality as well as the principle of nondiscrimination, is fundamental to the development of a species consciousness. As Daniel Lev of Human Rights Watch/Asia said in 1993, shortly before the Vienna Human Rights Conference: Whatever else may separate them, human beings belong to a single biological species, the simplest and most fundamental commonality before which the significance of human differences quickly fades. . . . We are all capable, in exactly the same ways, of feeling pain, hunger, [*153] and a hundred kinds of deprivation. Consequently, people nowhere routinely concede that those with enough power to do so ought to be able to kill, torture, imprison, and generally abuse others. . . . The idea of universal human rights shares the recognition of one common humanity, and provides a minimum solution to deal with its miseries. n5 Membership in the human species is central to the meaning and enforcement of human rights, and respect for basic human rights is essential for the survival of the human species. The development of the concept of "crimes against humanity" was a milestone for universalizing human rights in that it recognized that there were certain actions, such as slavery and genocide, that implicated the welfare of the entire species and therefore merited universal condemnation. n6 Nuclear weapons were immediately seen as a technology that required international control, as extreme genetic manipulations like cloning and inheritable genetic alterations have come to be seen today. In fact, cloning and inheritable genetic alterations can be seen as crimes against humanity of a unique sort: they are techniques that can alter the essence of humanity itself (and thus threaten to change the foundation of human rights) by taking human evolution into our own hands and directing it toward the development of a new species, sometimes termed the "posthuman." n7 It may be that species-altering techniques, like cloning and inheritable genetic modifications, could provide benefits to the human species in extraordinary circumstances. For example, asexual genetic replication could potentially save humans from extinction if all humans were rendered sterile by some catastrophic event. But no such necessity currently exists or is on the horizon.

Human Rights Advantage

Embargo Hurts HR

Embargo undermines human rights – keeps goods from the Cuban peopleColl 07 Professor of Law and President, International Human Rights Law Institute, DePaul College of Law [Alberto R. Coll, Harming Human Rights in the Name of Promoting Them: The Case of the Cuban Embargo, UCLA Journal of International Law and Foreign Affairs, Fall, 2007, 12 UCLA J. Int'l L. & For. Aff. 199]

CONCLUSION The Cuban embargo's sole purpose, as articulated officially by the U.S. government, is to promote human rights and democracy on the island. However, because the embargo is comprehensive and indiscriminate, the [*273] embargo adversely affects the human rights of vast numbers of innocent Cubans, especially in the areas of economic, social, and cultural rights. The embargo has also failed since its inception more than four decades ago to contribute to the promotion of human rights on the island, and it continues to retard any possible political opening by fostering a siege mentality among Cuban leadership. Moreover, the embargo disregards the clear wishes of the people of Cuba for closer economic, family and cultural ties to the United States, thereby contradicting its own ostensibly democratic rationale and further detracting from the limited possibilities currently available to Cubans to create a more open society.Moreover, the embargo can be justified legally only by grounding it in the classic state sovereignty paradigm according to which states can refuse to trade with any others regardless of the consequences to the target state's population. This paradigm is completely at odds with the cosmopolitan paradigm which gives states a legitimate interest in the domestic human rights conditions of other states. This latter paradigm is the basis under which the United States has justified its "human rights" embargo against Cuba since 1992. Thus, both philosophically and as a policy instrument, the embargo is incoherent in its very rationale.As an indiscriminate, comprehensive, unilateral peacetime measure taken by the world's most powerful nation against a small developing country, the embargo also has come under the strict legal scrutiny of the international community. Because the embargo is a human rights embargo as opposed to a national security embargo, it is subject to a higher degree of scrutiny in terms of its impact on the human rights of the affected population. For the past ten years, overwhelming majorities at the GA, including all of the United States' closest European, Asian and Latin American allies, have voted against the embargo. Since 2000, the votes in favor of the United States have been reduced to four out of 187: the United States itself, Israel, and two Pacific island mini-states that are heavily dependent on U.S. foreign aid. Even Israel, which ironically maintains full commercial relations with Cuba and allows its citizens to travel and invest there, has explained its vote not as a vote in favor of the embargo but as a vote against condemning the actions of its senior ally. The depth and breadth of the global consensus against the embargo point to serious international doubts regarding its legal permissibility and its appropriateness as an instrument for the promotion of human rights. Thus far, however, Washington shows no signs of paying any heed to this international consensus, just as it ignores what Cubans on the island think of the chief policy instrument though which the United States seeks to bring democracy and human rights to their country.

Sanctions Bad

Sanctions are human rights violationsShagabutdinova & Berejikian 07 a. member of the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, MA/JD, at the University of Georgia b. Associate Professor of International Affairs, School of Public and International Affairs, at the University of Georgia [Ella Shagabutdinova & Jeffrey Berejikian, Deploying Sanctions while Protecting Human Rights: Are Humanitarian “Smart” Sanctions Effective?, Journal of Human Rights, Volume 6, Issue 1, 2007]

While the use of sanctions is permitted under the principles of international law (UN Charter, Art. 39 & 41, as well as notion of state sovereignty), 1 they often produce consequences that run counter to the obligations of governments to protect human rights. Hence, sanctions constitute violations of human rights to the extent they deny the above-mentioned fundamental basic rights and violated norms of jus cogens. Even the United Nations, often the focal point for a sanctioning effort, now acknowledges that the damage imposed by sanctions can rise to the level of human rights abuses (Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, General Comment No. 8, 1997). Similarly, the United Nations authorized a number of studies detailing humanitarian impact of sanctions and their devastating effect on human rights (Garfield 1999; Minear 1997). While some disagree that sanctions constitute human rights violations directly (e.g., Marks 1999), there is nonetheless near universal consensus on the main point: economic sanctions, even when used for humanitarian purposes, (often unintentionally) impose significant hardship on innocent populations.

Humanitarian Crisis

Embargo responsible for a humanitarian crisis Hernandez-Truyol 09 Mabie, Levin & Mabie Professor of Law, University of Florida, Levin College of Law [Berta E. Hernandez-Truyol, Embargo or Blockade - The Legal and Moral Dimensions of the U.S. Economic Sanctions on Cuba, 4 Intercultural Hum. Rts. L. Rev. 53 (2009)]

IV A Critique - The Effects of the Embargo from a Social Justice Perspective"0 It is common knowledge that trade sanctions hurt workers and industries, not the officials who authored the policies that are the target of the sanctions. The countries most likely to face sanctions are those run by undemocratic governments least likely to let the pain of their population sway them. These observations hold true in the case of the U.S. embargo on Cuba. While in nearly fifty years of the embargo the purported goal of achieving democracy in Cuba has not been met, the embargo has had deleterious effects on Cuba and the Cuban people. First, a look at some factual data in light of trade relation confirms the reality and extent of the harms suffered. In 1958, the United States accounted for 67% of Cuba's exports and 70% of its imports,11 placing it seventh on both export and import markets of the United States.112 In 1999, by contrast, official U.S. exports to Cuba totaled a paltry $4.7 million, which was comprised mainly of donations of medical aid, pharmaceuticals, and other forms of charitable aid. 13 In the year 2000, Cuba ranked 184th of 189 importers of U.S. agricultural products. 114 The relaxation of sanctions against food and medicines beginning in 2000 found Cuba rising to 138th in 2001 and to 26th in 2004 for U.S. export markets." 5 By 2006, Cuba's ranking had fallen slightly to become the 33rd largest market for U.S. agricultural exports (exports totaling $328 million).16 The U.S. International Trade Commission estimates an ongoing annual loss to all U.S. exporters of approximately $1.2 billion for their inability to trade with Cuba.117 The Cuban government estimates that the total direct economic impact caused by the embargo is $86 billion, which includes loss of export earnings, additional costs for import, and a suppression of the growth of the Cuban economy.' 18 However, various economic researchers and the U.S. State Department discount the effect of the embargo and suggest that the Cuban problem is one of lack of hard foreign currency which renders Cuba unable to purchase goods it needs in the open market.' 19That there has been an economic impact of the embargo is evident to anyone who visits Cuba. For example, there is a minuscule number of modern automobiles on the roads of Cuba. Most are American vehicles from the late 1950s-prior to the embargo (and the revolution). To be sure, because the law prohibits ships from entering U.S. ports for six months after making deliveries to Cuba, the policy effectively denies Cuba access to the U.S. automobile market. 120 However, the impacts of economic sanctions are greater than lack of access to goods. In the case of Cuba, some argue that the U.S. embargo has had a deleterious impact on nutrition and health with a lack of availability of medicine and equipment, as well as decreased water quality.121 Indeed, the American Association for World Health (AAWH), in a 1997 report, concluded that the U.S. embargo of Cuba has dramatically harmed the health and nutrition of large numbers of ordinary Cuban citizens .... [I]t is our expert medical opinion that the U.S. embargo has caused a significant rise in suffering-and even deaths-in Cuba .... A humanitarian catastrophe has been averted only because the Cuban government has maintained a high level of budgetary support for a health care system designed to deliver primary and preventive health care to all of its citizens. 122 Thus, AAWH concludes that the embargo, limiting availability of food, medicine, and medical supplies, has a deleterious effect on Cuban society. Significantly, religious leaders, including the late Pope John Paul II, opposed the embargo and called for its end.23 The gravamen of the objection is the humanitarian and economic hardships that the embargo causes.

Right to Medicine

Embargo denies medicine access to Cuban peopleColl 07 Professor of Law and President, International Human Rights Law Institute, DePaul College of Law [Alberto R. Coll, Harming Human Rights in the Name of Promoting Them: The Case of the Cuban Embargo, UCLA Journal of International Law and Foreign Affairs, Fall, 2007, 12 UCLA J. Int'l L. & For. Aff. 199]

In a widely publicized 1997 report, the American Association for World Health ("AAWH") found that the embargo's arduous licensing provisions actively discouraged medical trade and commerce. n289 AAWH further reported that in some cases U.S. officials provided American firms with misleading or confusing information. n290 In addition, it reported that several licenses for legitimate medications and medical equipment were denied as "detrimental to U.S. foreign policy interests." n291 The AAWH concluded that, as a result of inaccurate or confusing information from U.S. officials, [*242] one-half of the firms they surveyed incorrectly believed that the embargo prevented all sales of medications and medical supplies to Cuba. n292An arduous and confusing process that discourages even legal sales of medication and medical supplies from U.S. companies or subsidiaries harms Cubans' human rights to health and medical care. The licensing procedures often effectively ensure that vital health products are only available to Cubans through intermediaries at prohibitive prices that are much higher than in the American market. n293 The resulting impact of medication shortages in Cuba is well documented. n294 For example, between 1992 and 1993, medication shortages in Cuba accounted for a 48% increase in deaths from tuberculosis; a 67% increase in deaths due to infectious and parasitic diseases; and a 77% increase in deaths from influenza and pneumonia . n295More recently, the Cuban government has issued reports in the United Nations General Assembly documenting the ways in which the U.S. embargo makes the process of obtaining medications and medical equipment unnecessarily difficult and costly. n296 Two examples include Cuba's unsuccessful attempts to purchase an anti-viral medication called Tenofovir (Viread) from the U.S. firm Gilead and Depo-Provera, a contraceptive drug, from another U.S. firm, Pfizer. Because it would have required an export license from the U.S. government, Gilead was unable to sell Tenofovir, and Cuba was forced to purchase the medication through third-parties at a significantly higher price. The Cuban government cited this as an example of the embargo's negative impact on Cuba's efforts to modernize its HIV/AIDS treatments. n297 In the Depo-Provera example, Cuba reported that, despite Cuba's attempts to purchase the drug as part of a national program associated with the United Nations Population Fund, Pfizer claimed it could not sell the product to Cuba without obtaining a number of licenses, a process which would take several months. n298 Cuba's report to the United Nations [*243] also chronicled obstacles the country faced in obtaining medical equipment from U.S. companies and subsidiaries.Moreover, Cuba reports that the embargo's restrictions go beyond the purchase of medical equipment and medications but also includes replacement components for equipment it already possesses. n299 The country reported being denied the possibility of purchasing replacement pieces containing U.S.-made components for equipment used in its Oncology and Radiobiology Institute. n300 In another example, Cuba reported that the U.S. Treasury refused to authorize Atlantic Philanthropic, a United States NGO, from donating a molecular biology laboratory to Cuba's Nephrology Institute. This technology would have facilitated successful kidney transplants for a larger percentage of Cuban patients. n301 Additional reported examples include film for x-ray machines used to detect breast cancer, Spanish-language medical books from a U.S. conglomerate subsidiary, and U.S.-made components for respirators. n302A policy of maintaining an arduous and at times insurmountable licensing procedure for trading health-related products with Cuba harms the health of Cuban citizens. Moreover, the waste of valuable time and the deprivation of necessary medicine and equipment do not make sense morally or politically. In a 1995 speech addressing the use of economic sanctions as a political tool, former United Nations Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali explained: "Sanctions, as is generally recognized, are a blunt instrument. They raise the ethical question of whether suffering inflicted on vulnerable groups in the target country is a legitimate means of exerting pressure on political leaders whose behaviour is unlikely to be affected by the plight of their subjects." n303

Right to Family

Violates the Right to FamilyColl 07 Professor of Law and President, International Human Rights Law Institute, DePaul College of Law [Alberto R. Coll, Harming Human Rights in the Name of Promoting Them: The Case of the Cuban Embargo, UCLA Journal of International Law and Foreign Affairs, Fall, 2007, 12 UCLA J. Int'l L. & For. Aff. 199]

D. Right to FamilyThe right to family, and the obligation of governments to respect the family and refrain from interfering with family life and family relations, is a fundamental human right recognized in numerous international human rights documents and treaties to which the United States is a party. Although these documents focus on the obligations of states toward their own citizens, they also refer to states' obligation to promote the enjoyment of these rights by all. Thus, one of the embargo's chief legal and moral flaws is that, although it purports to promote the human rights of Cubans on the island, it actually harms their rights - as well as the rights of Cuban-Americans in the United States - to family life.The Bush administration's 2004 amendment to the CACRs were particularly damaging. To review, the amendment tightened travel restrictions by: (1) restricting travel to once every three years; (2) limiting the length of travel to 14 days; (3) requiring special licenses to visit Cuba; (4) eliminating any additional visas; (5) reducing the amount of money travelers could spend during their trip to Cuba; (6) restricting remittance amounts; (7) limiting remittance amounts that travelers could bring with them to Cuba; n325 and (8) redefining "immediate family" to include only "spouse, child, grandchild, parent, grandparent, or sibling of that person or that person's spouse, as well as any spouse, widow or widower of the foregoing." n326 This last definition effectively prohibits aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews and cousins from traveling to Cuba to visit their families, n327 causing numerous Cubans living in the [*248] United States to suffer immeasurable emotional turmoil. The emotional toll that the embargo imposes is thus extensive and disproportionate to any conceivable policy goal the regulations might serve, such as denying resources to the Castro regime. n328The human suffering imposed by these restrictions becomes apparent by examining individual stories about their impact. Prior to the implementation of the amended travel restrictions, Marisela Romero, a 53-year old Cuban-American, traveled to Cuba several times a year to visit her 87-year old father who suffers from Alzheimer's disease. n329 The amended travel restrictions now make it impossible for her to visit more than once every three years. The Office of Foreign Asset Control denied her request for permission to travel more often by stating that "it would be inappropriate for you to make application with the Office of Foreign Assets Control for a specific license to visit a member of your immediate family until the required three-year period has passed." n330Romero's father was the only living member of her "immediate family" in Cuba, and he was "incapable of cashing checks or even signing them over to someone else" due to his illness. n331 Thus, the restrictions not only limited Romero's ability to visit her ailing father but also limited her ability to support him by sending remittances. Moreover, the psychological impact of the travel restrictions was severe for both of them. The father's doctor informed Romero that her father "had become deeply depressed - most likely because of her extended absence - and stopped eating." n332 He subsequently died before Romero was able to visit him.The restrictions also weigh heavily upon those left behind in Cuba to care for ill relatives. Prior to the implementation of the amended travel restrictions, Andres Andrade, a 50-year old Cuban-American, traveled to Cuba regularly to help his sister care for their aging parents. n333 Because of the amended travel restrictions, Andres' sister was left largely on her own. Andres' mother, who was battling cancer, had to be hospitalized in late 2004 [*249] due to a severe pulmonary complication. n334 Travel restrictions prevented Andres from traveling to Cuba to be at his mother's side and left his sister alone to care for their mother. His sister "spent four straight days without any sleep, sitting on a chair next to her." n335 Andres' sister believed that their mother "was holding onto life because she hoped that he would come ... . That day before she died, the screaming was horrible. She wept and cried out his name." n336 The death of Andres' mother took a terrible toll on Andres' father's health. According to Andres' sister:"Every day he tells me that he is waiting for Andres to come because he has a gift for him that my mom gave him and that only he can tell him... He says that he wants to go join my mom, that he wants to die but that before he goes he wants to see Andres and give him the gift that my mother left him... I pray to God that my dad makes it until 2007 [when Andres can visit Cuba]... But he is already 82-years old, and he is very sick... Sometimes, when I despair, I sit on the patio alone and cry." n337 These accounts evince the deep emotional distress caused by the CACR travel restrictions. Milay Torres, a teenage girl, moved to the United States with her father in 2000. n338 Milay returned to Cuba to visit her family three years later, and she planned to return again in 2004. With the implementation of the stricter travel rules, however, she would have to wait until 2006. n339 Upon learning this, Milay "became "very depressed, turned rebellious, and stopped going to school.'" n340 Milay's mother began to suffer severe anxiety as a result of her daughter's absence. She explained:After she left Cuba, I began suffering more anxiety attacks. After I found out [about the travel restrictions] my anxiety worsened. I am seeing psychologists and psychiatrists, and when I get these attacks, I go to the hospital and they inject me with some sedatives and send me home... When I see the things that are happening there with the travel restrictions ... my condition worsens because I am waiting for her to come, but she doesn't come... Sometimes I tell people that I would give up my life to be able to see my daughter for just five [*250] minutes. n341Thus, the psychological effects of the CACR restrictions on the multitude of affected families are profound.

Carlos Lazo, a U.S. army Sergeant serving in Iraq, returned to Miami during a leave from service in June of 2004 n342 and purchased an airline ticket to visit his two teenage sons in Cuba. n343 However, "even though his trip would have started before the new travel restrictions took effect, the Bush Administration directed charter aircraft to stop accepting new passengers, to fly to Cuba empty, and to return only with travelers from Cuba." n344 As Mr. Lazo commented, "the administration that trusted me in battle in Iraq does not trust me to visit my children in Cuba." n345 Moreover, Mr. Lazo's inability to visit his sons left him with deep feelings of inadequacy: "I can't help out my sons ... . I can't give them human warmth. I can't fulfill my obligation as a father. I can't send money to my uncles because they are no longer part of my family." n346The following statement by another Cuban-American summarizes the deep heartache caused by the travel restrictions to people on both sides of the Florida straits:Against my will and for decades I have been deprived of attending important happenings in Cuba such as the death and funeral of my father, grandfather, uncles, aunts, cousins, and high school buddies; weddings, births, and baptisms of nephew, niece, grandnephews, grandnieces and cousins. There were the long illnesses of my father, grandfather, uncle, niece, cousin and grandnephew ... . Thanks to Washington's restrictions it got very difficult, onerous and lengthy to obtain and deliver vital medications, thus prolonging the suffering and distress of patients and relatives on both sides of the straits. Telling of the cruelty, hurt, and violation of my human rights (and that of my family) caused by the travel ban could go on and on; its hypocrisy and double standard (go not to Cuba, but OK with China, Vietnam, Russia, Saudi Arabia, etc.) are incredible and not worthy of any nation that truly values family and God. n347 [*251] By enforcing an arbitrary definition of "immediate family," and by dictating when Cuban-Americans may visit their sick and dying family members, the embargo's travel restrictions create extreme psychological and emotional distress to those affected by them and violate the basic human right to family. n348

HR good

Human rights framework transforms political calculations – makes poverty, violence, disease, and nuclear conflict unthinkableSeita 97 Professor of law at Albany Law School of Union University [Alex Seita, “Globalization and the Convergence of Values”, 30 Cornell Int'l L.J. 429, L/N]

Because globalization promotes common values across nations and can make foreign problems, conditions, issues, and debates as vivid and captivating as national, state, and local ones, it contributes to a sense of world community. n99 It develops a feeling of empathy for the conditions of people abroad, enlarging the group of human beings that an individual will identify with. Globalization thus helps to bring alive persons in foreign lands, making them fellow human beings who simply live in different parts of the world rather than abstract statistics of deaths, poverty, and suffering. The convergence of basic political and economic values is thus fundamentally important because it helps to establish a common bond among people in different countries, facilitating understanding and encouraging cooperation. All other things being equal, the commonality among countries - whether in the form of basic values, culture, or language - enhances their attractiveness to each other. n100 In addition, convergence increases [*461] the possibility that a transformation of attitude will take place for those who participate in transnational activities. People will begin to regard foreigners in distant lands with the same concern that they have for their fellow citizens. n101 They will endeavor to help these foreigners obtain basic political rights even though the status of political rights in other countries will have no tangible beneficial impact at home. n102 Convergence does not mean that there is a single model of a market economy, a single type of democracy, or a single platform of human rights. They exist in different forms, and nations may have different combinations of these forms. n103 [*462] A. The Perspective of One Human Race The convergence of fundamental values through globalization has profound consequences because it increases the chance that a new perspective will develop, one which views membership in the human race as the most significant societal relationship, except for nationality. n104 A person owes his or her strongest collective loyalties to the various societies with which he or she most intensely identifies. Today, this societal identification can be based on numerous factors, including nationality, race, religion, and ethnic group. n105 While it is unlikely that nationality will be surpassed as the most significant societal relationship, globalization and the convergence of values may eventually convince people in different countries that the second most important social group is the human race, and not a person's racial, religious, or ethnic group. n106 One of the first steps in the formation of a society is the recognition by prospective members that they have common interests and bonds. An essential commonality is that they share some fundamental values. A second is that they identify themselves as members belonging to the same community on the basis of a number of common ties, including shared fundamental values. A third commonality is the universality of rights - the active application of the "golden rule" - by which members expect that all must be entitled to the same rights as well as charged with the same responsibilities to ensure that these rights are protected. Globalization promotes these three types of commonalities. Globalization establishes common ground by facilitating the almost universal acceptance of market economies, the widespread emergence of democratic governments, and the extensive approval of human rights. The most visible example is economic. With the end of the Cold War, the free market economy has clearly triumphed over the command economy in the battle of the [*463] economic paradigms. Because some variant of a market economy has taken root in virtually all countries, there has been a convergence of sorts in economic systems. n107 Further, because it often requires exposure to and pervasive interaction with foreigners - many of whom share the same fundamental values - globalization can enlarge the group that one normally identifies with. Globalization makes many of its participants empathize with the conditions and problems of people who in earlier years would have been ignored as unknown residents of remote locations. This empathy often leads to sympathy and support when these people suffer unfairly. Finally, the combination of shared values and identification produce the third commonality, universality of rights. n108 Citizens of one country will often expect, and work actively to achieve, the same basic values in other countries. They will treat nationals of other nations as they would wish to be treated. The effects of shared values, identification, and universality of rights in globalization could have a pivotal long-term effect - the possibility that a majority of human beings will begin to believe that they are truly part of a single global society - the human race. This is not to say that people disbelieve the idea that the human race encompasses all human beings. Of course, they realize that there is only one human species. Rather, the human race does not usually rank high on the hierarchy of societies for most people. Smaller societies, especially those based on nationality, race, religion, or ethnicity, command more loyalty. n109 The idea of the human race, the broadest and all-inclusive category

of the human species, is abstract and has little, if any, impact on the lives of human beings. To believe in the singular importance of the human race requires an attitudinal shift in which a person views the human race seriously . [*464] This may occur because the convergence of values does not only mean that the people of different countries will share the same basic values. It may also lead to the greater promotion of these values for the people of other countries. Historically and certainly today, America and the other industrial democracies have attempted to foster democracy and human rights in other countries. n110 While some part of this effort has been attributable to "self interest," it has also been due to the empathy that the industrialized democracies have had for other countries. n111 The magnitude of these efforts in the future, as in the past, will depend not solely upon the available financial and human resources of the industrialized democracies. It will also depend upon their national will - a factor undoubtedly influenced by the intensity with which the people of the industrialized democracies identify with people in foreign lands. The perspective that the human race matters more than its component divisions would accelerate cooperative efforts among nations to attack global problems that adversely affect human rights and the quality of human life. n112 Obviously, there is no shortage of such problems. Great suffering still occurs in so many parts of the world, not just from internal armed conflicts, n113 but also from conditions of poverty. n114 There are severe health problems in much of the world which can be mitigated with relatively little cost. n115 There are the lives lost to the AIDS epidemic, and [*465] the deaths and disabilities caused by land mines. n116 Russia, a nuclear superpower that could end life on this planet, has severe social, economic, and political problems. n117 Making the human race important would not just promote liberal democratic values but would also reduce human suffering and perhaps eliminate completely the risk of nuclear war.

Prioritizing Human Rights key to sustainable environmental decisionsMacDonald 06 Research Lecturer in Environmental Law @ Imperial College London [Karen MacDonald, Fordham Environmental Law Review, “ARTICLE: SUSTAINING THE ENVIRONMENTAL RIGHTS OF CHILDREN: AN EXPLORATORY CRITIQUE”, 18 Fordham Envtl. Law Rev. 1, Fall, L/N]

For example, insufficient and unsustainable development, e.g., inadequate access to or availability of drinking water coupled with groundwater contamination, unrestrained urban development, poor pollution control, management and regulation can all lead to environmental and health problems and thus an infringement of environmental rights: based upon the above justification for environmental rights, environmental rights cannot be denied, as they can be linked to other, fundamental human rights. Further, individual human rights cannot be seen in total isolation from one another. There are inextricable links between the right to life, the right to health and the right to environment and other rights, such as the right to enjoyment of property free from pollution, which form the ratio legis at the nexus of international human rights law and international environmental law n54 - that, of survival, existence and continuation of human life, which is inextricably linked to sustainable development.

Human Rights create frameworks that improve the worldShattuck 94 Former Assistant Secretary of State (John, Federal News Service, AT THE WOMEN'S NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC CLUB, September 12)

On the disintegration side, we are witnessing ugly and violent racial, ethnic and religious class conflict in Haiti, in Bosnia, in Central Asia, in Africa, most horribly in Rwanda -- all places where I have traveled in recent months and witnessed unspeakable suffering and abuses of the most fundamental rights. The new global community has yet to develop an adequate response to these horrors. We must intensify our search for new ways of holding individuals and governments accountable for gross human rights violations, for new ways of anticipating and preventing conflicts before they spiral into uncontrollable violence and reprisal, for new ways of mobilizing the international community to address an avalanche of humanitarian

crises. These are daunting tasks. Why then has the Clinton administration made protecting human rights and promoting democracy such a major theme in our foreign policy? The answer I think lies not only in our values, which could be reason enough, but in the strategic benefits to the United States of a policy that emphasizes our values. We know from historical experience that democracies are more likely than other forms of government to respect human rights, to settle conflicts peacefully, to observe international and honor agreements, to go to war with each other with great reluctance, to respect rights of ethnical, racial and religious minorities living within their borders, and to provide the social and political basis for free market economics. In South Africa, in the Middle East, and now remarkably perhaps even in Northern Ireland, the resolution of conflict and the broadening of political participation is releasing great economic and social energies that can provide better lives for all the people of these long-suffering regions. By contrast, the costs to the world of repressive governments are painfully clear. In the 20th century, the number of people killed by their own governments under authoritarian regimes is four times the number killed in all of this century's wars combined. Repression pushes refugees across the borders and triggers wars. Unaccountable governments are heedless of environmental destruction, as witnessed by Chernobyl and the ecological nightmares of Eastern Europe.

A commitment to human rights leadership in US foreign policy is key to prevent extinctionCopelon 99 Professor of Law and Director of the International Women's Human Rights Law Clinic (IWHR) at the City University of New York School of Law [Rhonda, New York City Law Review, 3 N.Y. City L. Rev. 59]

The indivisible human rights framework survived the Cold War despite U.S. machinations to truncate it in the international arena. The framework

is there to shatter the myth of the superiority [*72] of the U.S. version of rights, to rebuild popular expectations, and to help develop a culture and jurisprudence of indivisible human rights. Indeed, in the face of systemic inequality and crushing poverty, violence by official and private actors, globalization of the market economy, and military and environmental depredation, the human rights framework is gaining new force and new dimensions. It is being broadened today by the movements of people in different parts of the world, particularly in the Southern Hemisphere and significantly

of women, who understand the protection of human rights as a matter of individual and collective human survival and betterment. Also emerging is a notion of third-generation rights, encompassing collective rights that

cannot be solved on a state-by-state basis and that call for new mechanisms of accountability, particularly affecting Northern countries. The emerging rights include human-centered sustainable development, environmental protection, peace, and security. n38 Given the poverty and inequality in the United States as well as our role in the world, it is imperative that we bring the human rights framework to bear on both domestic and foreign policy.

Advantages

Human Rights

Sanctions Fail

Sanction inherently failSpadoni 2010 [Paolo Spadoni 2010 assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at Augusta State Failed sanctions why the US sanctions against cuba could never work page 4-5]

Overall, there is substantial evidence about the declining effectiveness ¶ of unilateral economic sanctions as a tool of statecraft and, more generally,¶ about the limited utility of sanctions even when they are imposed ¶ multilaterally . The most cited and comprehensive database on the subject¶ is that compiled by Hufbauer, Schott, Elliott, and Oegg (2008), who found¶ sanctions to be at least partially successful in 34 percent of the 204 cases¶ initiated between 1914 and 2000. More specifically, episodes involving ¶ modest objectives such as improvements in human rights and religious ¶ freedom, among others, succeeded in 51 percent of the cases. At the same ¶ time, efforts to destabilize a target government, impair a foreign adversary's ¶ military potential, and change a country's policies in a major way ¶ reached their objectives in about 30 percent of the cases (disruptions of¶ military adventures only a meager 21 percent of the time), leading Hufbauer¶ et al. (2008, 159) to conclude that "sanctions are of limited utility ¶ in achieving foreign policy goals that depend on compelling the target ¶ country to take actions it stoutly resists:' It should be emphasized that a¶ previous study by Hufbauer, Schott, and Elliott released at the end of the¶ cold war (another one was published in 1985) had shown similar results,¶ with sanctions being successful in about one-third of the l15 cases initiated¶ between 1914 and 1990 (Hufbauer et al. 1990, 93). The success rate ¶ they found and the standards utilized to arrive at such figure have been ¶ disputed both as being too lenient (Pape 1997, 1998), and too strict (Van¶ Bergeijk 1997; Baldwin 1985).

1AC Human rights AdvantageAdvantage __ is human rights:

Two internal links

First is credibility, the US embargo violates the human rights of CubansAmnesty International 09—Non-profit organization to protect human rights (“THE US ¶

EMBARGO AGAINST CUBA ITS IMPACT ON ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL RIGHTS”, Amnesty International, http://www.amnesty.org/ar/library/asset/AMR25/007/2009/en/51469f8b-73f8-47a2-a5bd-f839adf50488/amr250072009eng.pdf, Accessed 7/4/13, jtc)

“The adverse consequences of economic sanctions on the enjoyment of human rights”, a ¶ study prepared by Marc Bossuyt for the Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of ¶ Human Rights, concluded that the US embargo violates human rights law in two distinct ¶ ways. Firstly, “the fact that the United States is the major regional economic power and the ¶ main source of new medicines and technologies means that Cuba is subject to deprivations ¶ that impinge on its citizens’ human rights.” Secondly, by passing legislation that “tries to ¶ force third-party countries into embargoing Cuba as well” – the 1992 Torricelli Act – the US ¶ government attempted to turn “a unilateral embargo into a multilateral embargo through ¶ coercive measures, the only effect of which will be to deepen further the suffering of the ¶ Cuban people and increase the violation of their human rights”.34

The embargo doesn’t work- it’s just a scapegoat Bandow 12 --- Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and a former special assistant to former US president Ronald Reagan (“Time to End the Cuba Embargo”, December 11, 2012, Cato Institute, http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/time-end-cuba-embargo, accessed July 4, 2013, MY)

The U.S. government has waged economic war against the Castro regime for half a century. The policy may have been worth a try during the Cold War, but the embargo has failed to liberate the Cuban people. It is time to end sanctions against Havana.¶ Decades ago the Castro brothers lead a revolt against a nasty authoritarian, Fulgencio Batista. After coming to power in 1959, they created a police state, targeted U.S. commerce, nationalized American assets, and allied with the Soviet Union. Although Cuba was but a small island nation, the Cold War magnified its perceived importance.¶ Washington reduced Cuban sugar import quotas in July 1960. Subsequently U.S. exports were limited, diplomatic ties were severed, travel was restricted, Cuban imports were banned, Havana’s American assets were frozen, and almost all travel to Cuba was banned. Washington also pressed its allies to impose sanctions.¶ These various measures had no evident effect, other than to intensify Cuba’s reliance on the Soviet Union. Yet the collapse of the latter nation had no impact on U.S. policy. In 1992, Congress banned American subsidiaries from doing business in Cuba and in 1996, it penalized foreign firms that trafficked in expropriated U.S. property. Executives from such companies even were banned from traveling to America.¶ On occasion Washington relaxed one aspect or another of the embargo, but in general continued to tighten restrictions, even over Cuban Americans. Enforcement is not easy, but Uncle Sam tries his best. For instance, according to the Government Accountability Office, Customs and Border Protection increased its secondary inspection of passengers arriving from Cuba to reflect an increased risk of embargo violations after the 2004 rule changes, which, among other things, eliminated the allowance for travelers to import a small amount of Cuban products for personal consumption.¶ “¶ Lifting sanctions would be a victory not for Fidel Castro, but for the power of free people to spread liberty.”¶ Three years ago, President Barack Obama loosened regulations on Cuban Americans, as well as telecommunications between the United States and Cuba. However, the law sharply constrains the president’s discretion. Moreover, UN Ambassador Susan Rice said that the embargo will continue until Cuba is free.¶ It is far past time to end the embargo.¶ During the Cold War, Cuba offered a potential advanced military outpost for the Soviet Union. Indeed, that role led to the Cuban missile crisis. With the failure of the U.S.-supported Bay of Pigs invasion, economic pressure appeared to be Washington’s best strategy for ousting the Castro dictatorship.¶ However, the end of the Cold War left Cuba strategically irrelevant. It is a poor country with little ability to harm the United States. The Castro regime might still encourage unrest, but its survival has no measurable impact on any important U.S. interest.¶ The regime remains a humanitarian travesty, of course. Nor are Cubans the only victims: three years ago the regime jailed a State Department contractor for distributing satellite telephone

equipment in Cuba. But Havana is not the only regime to violate human rights. Moreover, experience has long demonstrated that it is virtually impossible for outsiders to force democracy. Washington often has used sanctions and the Office of Foreign Assets Control currently is enforcing around 20 such programs, mostly to little effect.¶ The policy in Cuba obviously has failed. The regime remains in power. Indeed, it has consistently used the embargo to justify its own mismanagement, blaming poverty on America. Observed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: “It is my personal belief that the Castros do not want to see an end to the embargo and do not want to see normalization with the United States, because they would lose all of their excuses for what hasn’t happened in Cuba in the last 50 years.” Similarly, Cuban exile Carlos Saladrigas of the Cuba Study Group argued that keeping the “embargo, maintaining this hostility, all it does is strengthen and embolden the hardliners.” ¶ Cuban human rights activists also generally oppose sanctions. A decade ago I (legally) visited Havana, where I met Elizardo Sanchez Santa Cruz, who suffered in communist prisons for eight years. He told me that the “sanctions policy gives the government a good alibi to justify the failure of the totalitarian model in Cuba.”

Second is oppression, the embargo allows the Cuban government to commit atrocities against its people, lifting solvesAmash 12- Brandon Amash, writer at the Prospect Journal, (“EVALUATING THE CUBAN EMBARGO,” 7/23/12, http://prospectjournal.org/2012/07/23/evaluating-the-cuban-embargo/, 6/28/13, CAS)

Although America’s previous policies of intervention, use of force and economic sanctions have all failed at achieving democratization in Cuba, not all options have been exhausted. One policy alternative for promoting democracy and human rights in Cuba that the United States has not attempted is the exact opposite of the approach it has taken for the past half century. Namely, the United States should lift the embargo on Cuba and reopen diplomatic relations in order to work internationally on improving human rights in Cuba. Unless Cuba, as a rogue state, is isolated internationally, rather than merely by the United States, the human rights situation in Cuba may never improve. A fresh policy of engagement towards Cuba has been delayed long enough.§ 4.1: Reopening diplomatic relations with Cuba will decrease the chances of conflict and will promote cooperation between the two countries economically, politically and socially. Diplomatic relations and negotiations have proven to be effective in the past in similar situations, such as the renewed relations between Egypt and Israel following the Camp David Accords. As Huddleston and Pascual state, “a great lesson of democracy is that it cannot be imposed; it must come from within. […] Our policy should therefore encompass the political, economic, and diplomatic tools to enable the Cuban people to engage in and direct the politics of their country” (Huddleston 14). The mobilization of the Cuban people on the issues of democratization, which are inherently linked to the human rights violations in Cuba, is a first step to producing changes in Cuba. American engagement with the Cuban people, currently lacking under the embargo policy, will provide the impetus in Cuban society to produce regime change. Furthermore, integrating U.S.-Cuba relations on a multilateral level will ease the burden on the United States in fostering democracy and a better human rights record in the country, as other states will be more involved in the process. In contrast to a policy of isolation, normalized relations will allow America to engage Cuba in new areas, opening the door for democratization and human rights improvements from within the Cuban state itself.§ 4.2: With diplomatic relations in place, the United States may directly promote human rights in the country through negotiations, conferences, arbitration and mediation. Providing the support, resources, and infrastructure to promote democratic systems in Cuba could produce immense improvements to the human rights situation in the nation. Normalizing diplomatic relations with the state will also allow America to truly support freedom of opinion and expression in Cuba, which it cannot currently promote under the isolationist policy. Furthermore, through diplomatic relations and friendly support, Cuba will be more willing to participate in the international system, as well as directly with the United States, as an ally. As the United States, along with the international community as a whole, helps and supports Cuba’s economic growth, Cuban society will eventually push for greater protection of human rights.

§ 4.3: Lifting economic sanctions will improve economic growth in Cuba, which correlates to democratization. Empirical evidence shows that a strong economy is correlated to democracy. According to the Modernization Theory of democratization, this correlation is a causal link: economic growth directly leads to democratization. Lifting the current economic sanctions on Cuba and working together to improve economic situations in the state will allow their economy to grow, increasing the likelihood of democracy in the state, and thus promoting greater freedom of expression, opinion and dissent.§ 4.4: A policy of engagement will be a long-term solution to promoting democracy and improving human rights in Cuba. This proposal, unique in that it is simply one of abandoning an antiquated policy and normalizing relations to be like those with any other country, does not present any large obstacles to implementation, either in the short run or the long run. The main challenge is in continuing to support such a policy and maintaining the normal diplomatic, economic and social relations with a country that has been isolated for such a long period of time. Although effects of such a policy may be difficult to determine in the short term, promoting democracy and improving human rights in Cuba are long-term solutions. As discussed above, engagement with the Cuban government and society, along with support from the international community, will provide the spark and guidance for the Cuban people to support and promote democracy, and thus give greater attention to human rights violations.

US needs to adopt consistent strategy to human rights to gain credibility and end oppressionMcDonough 2/11-- Amy McDonough, Program Assistant with the Open Society Foundations, previously worked at John Snow, Inc. (JSI) on USAID’s Maternal and Child Health Project, B.A. in Diplomacy and World Affairs from Occidental College (“Human Rights and the Failings of U.S. Public Diplomacy in Eurasia”, HuffPost, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/amy-mcdonough/human-rights-and-the-fail_b_2664667.html, Accessed 7/10/13, jtc)The United States has two distinct approaches to human rights violations in the countries of the former Soviet Union.¶ When it is in Washington's perceived strategic interest, the U.S. government normally remains quiet. When its strategic interests are not at stake, U.S. officials speak forcefully and work to expose human rights violations and corruption.¶ This inconsistent approach fuels cynicism toward the United States when it professes support for human rights. The approach also limits the incentives for governments in the region to improve their behavior and it fosters the perception that the United States is not a legitimate global protector of human rights. These inconsistencies become abundantly clear by comparing U.S. officials' public statements on Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Tajikistan and Russia, as shown in a recently published OSF policy paper, "Human Rights and the Failings of U.S. Public Diplomacy in Eurasia."¶ Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, which provide critical supply routes to U.S. troops in Afghanistan, are rarely criticized. U.S. officials tend to emphasize the positive aspects of the respective countries' behavior while ignoring persistent violations of human rights. When U.S. officials do mention human rights and democracy, they are usually buried at the end of a list of issues. But the United States takes the opposite approach toward Belarus. U.S. officials strongly condemn human rights violations and treat improvements in democratic governance as a requirement for improving bilateral relations.¶ In Russia, the United States takes a middle-of-the-road approach, addressing human rights and democracy problems while making clear that it considers these issues separate from other areas on which it seeks progress. The volume and stridency of U.S. rhetoric rises and falls depending on the state of play in other areas of the relationship with Russia. This approach underscores the reality that the United States will publicly comment on Russia's human rights and democracy problems only to the extent that its comments will not have a detrimental impact on its other interests.¶ To be sure, a one-size-fits-all approach to U.S. public diplomacy on human rights and democracy across its many diverse bilateral relationships is not feasible. Nevertheless, the United States should develop a more consistent approach to defending human rights to live up to its own standards. As former Secretary of State Clinton's said in her last television interview:¶ "... I believe that what we've done is to pioneer the new diplomacy, taking the best and continuing the traditions of... government-to-government negotiations, whether it's a trade treaty or a

peace treaty, but also expanding our aperture so that we understand that the United States must tell its story better... must stand for our values more strongly."¶ The beginning of the second Obama Administration presents an opportunity for the United States to reaffirm its values by taking the following steps:¶ Give greater weight to public diplomacy considerations in determining its approach to human rights and democracy. These issues should not only be discussed privately between governments; the United States needs to show the public in the region that it cares enough to speak publicly about these issues.¶ Speak more forthrightly about human rights in countries where it has strategic interests. There is significant room to increase pressure on countries such as Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, whose governments will not change course without greater pressure from the United States and the international community.¶ Weave human rights into discussions of other issues and address them concurrently, rather than "last but not least." Last is least. It is a means of trying to ensure that unpleasant discussions on human rights will not poison discussions on other strategic issues. Treating human rights and democracy on a par with other issues will show the United States' commitment to these issues and encourage real progress. ¶ If the United States starts treating these issues more consistently, leaders of oppressive regimes in the region will know that they will face increased pressure on the international stage if they do not choose to fully respect the rights and freedoms of their citizens. As importantly, their citizens will know that the United States is truly committed to supporting the universal values of human rights and democracy.

The Cuban embargo is inhumane and GenocidalSchweid 08 – Barry Schweid, AP diplomatic writer (“Cuban diplomat: US embargo is akin to genocide”, USA Today, 10/24/2008, http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/2008-10-24-2543966879_x.htm, Accessed: 7/3/2013, EH)WASHINGTON — Looking ahead to a new American administration, Cuba's top diplomat in Washington opened a campaign Wednesday to generate world pressure to kill a half-century old U.S. trade embargo that he likened to genocide."It's equivalent to genocide; its intention is strangulation," Jorge Bolanos said in an Associated Press interview a week before Cuba plans to ask the U.N. General Assembly to condemn the U.S. boycott of his country.Bolanos steered clear of presidential politics, but he said Cuba was ready for talks with the U nited States "if the U.S. considers Cuba an equal partner in negotiations."Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama has said he would be willing to meet with Cuban leader Raul Castro without preconditions and would ease restrictions on family-related travel and on money Cuban-Americans want to send to their families in Cuba.Republican nominee John McCain, meanwhile, has called the offer to meet "the wrong signal," but also has said he favors easing restrictions on Cuba once the United States is "confident that the transition to a free and open democracy is being made."The United States has no diplomatic relations with Cuba and lists the country as a state sponsor of terror. The trade embargo, imposed in 1962, has been tightened during President Bush's two terms."The last eight years have seen the most ruthless and inhumane application of the blockade," Bolanos said.It "typifies the act of genocide" and from the start was designed to undermine the Cuban revolution of 1959 led by Fidel Castro, the diplomat said. Forced to retire because of intestinal illnesses, Fidel yielded control of the government to his brother, Raul."He is better and better every day," Bolanos said. "He is writing." But Bolanos said he did not know if Fidel Castro, now 82, would be able to participate in the half-century anniversary celebration of the revolution in Santiago at the end of the year.Bolanos, who heads Cuba's "interest section" in Washington out of the embassy of Switzerland, said he had "no doubt the blockade is going to disappear" at some point.Next Wednesday, the U.N. General Assembly will consider a resolution calling on the United States to end the trade embargo. Every year for the past 17 years, the Assembly has approved Cuba's resolution, but the United States has not yielded."It is the most isolated issue at the U.N.," Bolanos said, and the U.N. has "a psychological and moral effect."The diplomat, a former ambassador to Mexico, Brazil and Britain, predicted the embargo, in time, will "disappear."Representing a government the United States shuns, Bolanos said he is limited in his travels to the Washington area and is permitted among government offices only to visit the State Department, where he said he has had occasional meetings.However, he said, the diplomatic community has treated him as "an ambassador in full capacity."Again and again, in a 50-minute interview conducted mostly in English, Bolanos returned to the U.S. embargo and its impact.

He said a few sick Cuban children have been unable to receive proper medical treatment because the United States would not approve the export of catheters. Some material for the blind also is under boycott, and Cuba was unable to purchase washing machines from Mexico because they had parts manufactured in the United States, he said."Eleven million Cubans live under the blockade's effects," he said. "Each day, each of them, child, woman, man, elder of whatever social position or religion, suffers without distinction, the perverse effects of the blockade . "The cost to Cuba has risen to $93 billion, but the blockade has failed to undermine the Cuban government "because of the irrevocable will of the Cuban nation to defend its legitimate right to self-determination," the ambassador said.

Human Rights Credibility extns.

Embargo is a systemic violation of human rights and an act of genocide UNGA 12 United Nations General Assembly,(“Necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the United States of America against Cuba”,cubavsbloqueo.cu,5/12,http://www.cubavsbloqueo.cu/informebloqueo2012/Idiomas/1206%20-informe%20bloqueo%202012%20Ingles.pdf,Accessed:7/3/13,JW)

The policy of blockade against Cuba persists and has been intensified despite the attempts of and growing protests by the international community to have the US government change its policy towards¶ Cuba, lift the blockade and

normalize bilateral relations between the ¶ two countries. ¶ The blockade violates International Law; it is contrary to the purposes ¶

and principles of the United Nations Charter and constitutes a violation39¶ of the right to peace, development and security of a sovereign State. ¶

Its essence and objectives are an act of mass, flagrant and systematic violation of the human rights of an entire people and qualifies as an act of genocide by virtue of the Geneva Convention of 1948 on the ¶ Prevention and

Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. It also violates the constitutional rights of the American people, since it puts restrictions on their freedom to travel to Cuba. Moreover, given its ¶ extraterritorial character, it violates the sovereign rights of many other ¶ States. ¶ The economic damage caused to the Cuban people by the application of the economic, commercial and financial blockade of the United States against Cuba until December of 2011, taking into account the ¶ devaluation of the dollar vis-à-vis the price of gold and the world ¶ market, amounts to 1 trillion 66 billion (1,066,000,000,000) dollars. At current prices, and based on a very conservative estimate, this figure exceeds 108 billion (108,000,000,000) dollars.¶ The blockade continues to be an absurd, obsolete, illegal and morally unsustainable policy; it has not succeeded, nor will it succeed, in its ¶ attempt to subjugate the patriotic decision of the Cuban people to ¶ preserve their sovereignty, independence and right to free selfdetermination. But it generates shortages and sufferings for the ¶ population, it imposes limitations on and delays the development of the country and seriously damages the economy of Cuba. It is the ¶ main obstacle to the economic and social development of the Island. ¶ The blockade is a unilateral policy, rejected both inside the United ¶ States and by the international community. The United States must lift it, immediately and unconditionally. ¶ Once again, Cuba appreciates and requests the support of the ¶ international community in order to put an end to this unfair, illegal and ¶ inhuman policy.

Lifting trade embargo key to human rights – improves US imageFranks 12 – Jeff Franks, writer at Reuters (“Cuba says ending U.S. embargo would help both countries”, Reuters, 9/20/12, http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/20/us-cuba-usa-embargo-idUSBRE88J15G20120920, accessed: 6/27/13, ckr)

(Reuters) - Both the U nited S tates and Cuba would benefit if Washington would lift its longstanding trade embargo against the island, but U.S. President Barack Obama has toughened the sanctions since taking office in 2009, a top Cuban official said on Thursday. The embargo , fully in place since 1962, has done $108 billion in damage to the Cuba economy , but also has violated the constitutional rights of Americans and made a market of 11 million people off limits to U.S. companies , Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez told reporters. "The blockade is, without doubt, the principal cause of the economic problems of our country and the essential obstacle for (our) development," he said, using Cuba's term for the embargo. "The blockade provokes suffering , shortages, difficulties that reach each Cuban family , each Cuban child," Rodriguez said. He spoke at a press conference that Cuba stages each year ahead of what has become an annual vote in the United Nations on a resolution condemning the embargo. The vote is expected to take place next month. Last year, 186 countries voted for the resolution, while only the United States and Israel supported the embargo, Rodriguez said.

Lifting the embargo would improve the image of the U nited S tates around the world , he said, adding that it would also end what he called a " massive, flagrant and systematic violation of human rights ." That violation includes restrictions on U.S. travel to the island that require most Americans to get U.S. government permission to visit and a ban on most U.S. companies doing business in Cuba, he said."The prohibition of travel for Americans is an atrocity from the constitutional point of view ," Rodriguez said. Cuba has its own limits on travel that make it difficult for most of its citizens to leave the country for any destination. Rodriguez said the elimination of the embargo would provide a much-needed tonic for the sluggish U.S. economy. "In a moment of economic crisis , lifting the blockade would contribute to the U nited S tates a totally new market of 11 million people. It would generate employment and end the situation in which American companies cannot compete in Cuba," he said.Obama, who said early in his presidency that he wanted to recast long-hostile U.S.-Cuba relations, has been a disappointment to the Cuban government, which expected him to do more to dismantle the embargo.

Embargo oppresses Cuban people—US double standard Stephens 09—Sarah Stephens, Director of the Center for Democracy in the Americas (“U.N. Vote to Condemn (Obama's?) Embargo on Cuba”, Huff Post WORLD, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sarah-stephens/un-vote-to-condemn-obamas_b_333722.html, Accessed 7/4/13, jtc)Our policy is especially controversial in our own hemisphere, where the U.S. alone is without diplomatic relations with Cuba, and where forum after forum -- including the Rio Group, the Ibero-American Summit, the Heads of State of Latin America and the Caribbean, and CARICOM -- has rejected the embargo and called for its repeal.¶ Beyond our diplomatic interests, the report forces us to move beyond the stale, political debate in which the embargo is most often framed (where every problem on the island is blamed on either Cuba's system or U.S. policy) and to confront the significant injuries this policy inflicts on ordinary Cubans.¶ It reminds us:¶ The embargo stops Cuba from obtaining diagnostic equipment or replacement parts for equipment used in the detection of breast, colon, and prostate cancer.¶ The embargo stops Cuba from obtaining patented materials that are needed for pediatric cardiac surgery and the diagnosis of pediatric illnesses. ¶ The embargo prevents Cuba from purchasing antiretroviral drugs for the treatment of HIV-AIDS from U.S. sources of the medication .¶ The embargo stops Cuba from obtaining needed supplies for the diagnosis of Downs' Syndrome. ¶ Under the embargo, Cuba cannot buy construction materials from the nearby U.S. market to assist in its hurricane recovery. ¶ While food sales are legal, regulatory impediments drive up the costs of commodities that Cuba wants to buy from U.S. suppliers, and forces them in many cases to turn to other more expensive and distant sources of nutrition for their people. ¶ Because our market is closed to their goods, Cuba cannot sell products like coffee, honey, tobacco, live lobsters and other items that would provide jobs and opportunities for average Cubans.¶ This list, abbreviated for space, is actually much longer, more vivid and troubling, as the report documents case after case of how our embargo affects daily life in Cuba. And for what reason? Because it will someday force the Cuban government to dismantle its system? As a bargaining chip? These arguments have proven false and futile over the decades and what the UN has been trying to tell us since 1992 is that they should be abandoned along with a policy that has so outlived its usefulness.¶ And yet, it is now the Obama administration supporting and enforcing the embargo -- still following Bush-era rules that thwart U.S. agriculture sales; still levying stiff penalties for violations of the regulations; still stopping prominent Cubans from visiting the United States; still refusing to use its executive authority to allow American artists, the faith community, academics, and other proponents of engagement and exchange to visit Cuba as representatives of our country and its ideals.¶ To his credit, President Obama has taken some useful steps to change U.S. policy toward Cuba. He repealed the cruel Bush administration rules on family travel that divided Cuban families. He joined efforts by the OAS to lift Cuba's suspension from that organization. He has opened a direct channel of negotiations with Cuba's government on matters that include migration, resuming direct mail service, and relaxing the restrictions that Cuban and U.S. diplomats face in doing their jobs in each of our nation's capitals.¶ This is a start, but more -- much more -- needs to be done. Not because the UN says so, but because our country needs to embrace the world not as we found it in 1959 -- or in 2008 -- but as it exists today. President Obama can do this. Our times demand that he do so.

Embargo is unpopular and violates human rightsFox 11 – Michael Fox, Michael Fox is a former editor of NACLA Report on the Americas, he is the co-author of the new book Latin America’s Turbulent Transitions: The Future of 21st Century Socialism (“The UN and Human Rights:

Condemning the U.S. Embargo of Cuba”, North American Congress on Latin America, Oct 26 2011, https://nacla.org/news/2011/10/26/un-and-human-rights-condemning-us-embargo-cuba, Accessed: 7/3/2013, EH)On Tuesday, the UN General Assembly again voted overwhelming to condemn the U.S. embargo of Cuba. This was the 20th consecutive vote against the U.S. embargo. The final result was 186-2 in favor of the resolution. Like last year, only Israel and the United States voted against the measure while the island nations Palau, Micronesia, and the Marshall Islands abstained.517 The United Nations (credit: CNN U.S.)Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez said yesterday that the sanctions over the last five decades have caused the Cuban people nearly $1 trillion in economic damages.After a surprise visit to Cuba in April, former U.S. president Jimmy Carter also called for an end of the embargo. But as William M. LeoGrande, the Dean of the American University School of Public Affairs, wrote in the July/August 2011 NACLA Report, a profound change in U.S. policy toward Cuba isn’t likely any time soon.This is partially due to the fact that since the end of the Cold War the United States has justified its embargo against Cuba as a policy of human rights.The embargo is “one aspect of U.S. policy toward Cuba, whose overarching goal is to encourage a more open environment in Cuba and increased respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms,” said Ronald D. Godard, U.S. Senior Area Adviser for Western Hemisphere Affairs, recently.However, according to international relations scholar Arturo López-Levy in the most recent NACLA Report, the embargo itself actually violates basic principles of the human rights model established by the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.“[T]he problem with the embargo is that human rights as a whole have never been an essential consideration in its design,” writes López-Levy in his piece, " ‘Chaos and Instability’: Human Rights and U.S. Policy Goals in Cuba.” “One right above all others takes precedence in U.S. Cuba policy: the right of Cuban exiles to reclaim their private properties that were nationalized during Cuba’s revolutionary process after 1959. The embargo furthermore reflects Cuban exiles’ desire to punish those who do not accept them as the rulers of Cuba by including measures to ‘purify’ the island of the current government’s upper echelons and many of its followers.”

The embargo causes human rights issues in Cuba, changing policy solvesMarch 13 – William March- Tribune Staff, quotes Rep. Kathy Castor of Tampa, (“Castor to Obama: Reform ‘outdated’ Cuba embargo, travel ban”, The Tampa Tribune, April 23 2013, http://tbo.com/article/20130423/SERVICES02/130429992/1438, Accessed: 6/28/13, EH)U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor of Tampa, fresh back from a trip to Cuba, has told President Barack Obama in a letter that the U.S. travel ban and trade embargo against Cuba are outdated, unproductive and harmful and should be reformed.In the four-page letter, Castor never quite says “lift the embargo” or “end the travel ban,” but she comes very close.“America's policy of isolation toward Cuba, i.e. the travel ban and embargo of the last 50 years, has resulted in little change,” she writes. “It is time to refresh America's relationship with Cuba and develop a more humane and smarter approach than the outdated Cold War policies of the past.”Castor also quotes the Human Rights Watch organization saying the embargo “continues to impose indiscriminate hardship on the Cuban people and has done nothing to improve human rights in Cuba.”She asks Obama to “heed the words of many of the Cuban dissidents I have spoken to who urge America to give greater attention to its island neighbor, lift the embargo and promote modernization of civil society in Cuba.”As she has before, Castor argues in the letter that Cuba has made “significant changes” in allowing free enterprise for its citizens; that the travel restrictions violate the rights of Americans; that Cuba is not a “state sponsor of terrorism”; and that a policy of engagement would improve America's diplomatic standing in the region.She also notes Cuba's quick return of the two Hakken children abducted by their father in Tampa recently, and her own constituents' frequent need for help in making visits and contacts with family members in Cuba in instances of family emergencies.

Cuban embargo is inhumaneDNO 12(“Cuba makes case for lifting of US embargo”, Dominica News Online, October 10 2012, http://dominicanewsonline.com/news/homepage/news/international-relations/cuba-makes-case-for-lifting-of-us-embargo/, Accessed: 7/4/13, EH)

The Cuban government is once again calling on the international community to support its call for the lifting of the trade embargo imposed by the United States.At a press conference, to garner local support, Cuban ambassador to Dominica Joanna Elena Ramos on Wednesday described the embargo “as an act of genocide.”“The increased persecution of Cuba’s international financial transactions has been one of the distinctive features in the implementation of the blockade policy under the current US administration,” she argued.For the 21st consecutive time Cuba on November 13th, 2012 will submit for the consideration of the UN General Assembly the draft resolution entitled “Necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the United States of America against Cuba”.Since its conception the resolution has been steadily gaining support from nations around the globe. Last year 186 member states voted in favor of the resolution, which according to Cuba is irrefutable proof that the battle for the lifting of the blockade has the recognition and support of the vast majority of the international community.But calls for lifting the embargo have fallen on deaf ears. In 2012 the US imposed a $619-million fine on the Dutch bank ING for making transactions with Cuba, in dollars.Actions like these due to the embargo are described by the Cuban ambassador as criminal and inhumane. “The blockade continues to be a criminal, inhumane and morally unsustainable policy that has not succeeded and will never succeed in fulfilling the purpose of breaking the political will of the Cuban people to preserve its sovereignty, independence and right to self-determination,” she stated.She said the embargo is having a devastating impact on Cuba. “The direct economic damage to the Cuban people by the implementation of the economic, commercial and financial blockade of the United States against Cuba until December 2011 based on the current prices and calculated in a very conservative way, amount to over 108 billion dollars (108,000,000,000),” she said. “Taking into consideration the depreciation of the US dollar against the price of gold in the international financial market, the damages cost to the Cuban economy would exceed one trillion 66 thousand million dollars ($1,066,000,000,000).”She also thanked the Dominican government for its continued support on the matter.

Cuban embargo is an extreme human rights abuse, medicine, development, and disaster reliefMingxin 10 –Bi Mingxin, editor and columnist for xinhuanet.com (“U.S. embargo denies right of Cubans to development: Venezuela”, English.news.cn, 2010-10-27, http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2010-10/27/c_13576914.htm, Accessed: 7/4/13, EH)UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 26 (Xinhua) -- Venezuela said here Tuesday that the U.S. embargo against Cuba is "a repeated and unilateral denial" of the right of the Caribbean island country and its people to development, and criticized the United States for continuing to "ignore the voice of the peoples of the world that demand the end of this genocidal policy."The statement came as Jorge Valero, Venezuela's permanent representative to the United Nations, was taking the floor at an open debate of the UN Security Council on "the necessity of ending economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States against Cuba.""The blockade is, in short, a repeatedly and unilateral denial, by a signatory to the United Nations Charter, of the right to development of another member states," he said.Valero, who also described the U.S. blockade as "criminal," said, "The blockade affects the legitimate interests of any sovereign state that legitimately decides to become a business partner of the Republic of Cuba, through the extraterritorial application of the U.S. legal system."The United States imposed the trade embargo on Cuba in early 1960s when both countries severed diplomatic ties."The devastating collateral damage inflicted each day to the brotherly people of the island by the policy of the blockade, are unjustifiable," he said. "It would cause a massive humanitarian disaster in Cuba -- as recognized by the American Association of World Health -- if this nation did not have an extraordinary system of public health.""The blockade against Cuba has diverse impacts on the daily lives of women and men, children and the elderly," he said. "It manifests itself -- crudely -- in the way it affects the quality of life of children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, which must do without the standard treatment for this disease ." "The blockade also manifests in the difficulties of the people to have access to the enjoyment of housing rights," he said. "It hinders the import of building materials needed to replace and repair the huge number of buildings affected by the hurricanes."

"The blockade generates millions in losses each year in Cuba 's basic industries: sugar, steel work and tourism," he said.Meanwhile, he said that the new U.S. government did nothing to change its policy towards Cuba and continued to ignore the voice of the world for an end to such an embargo."The change of government in the United States generated great expectations regarding a new policy respecting the sovereignty of nations," he said. "There is nothing that suggests, however, that there have been substantial changes in the foreign policy of the United States, in particular, in regards to the blockade against Cuba.""The U.S. government continues to ignore the voice of the peoples of the world that demand the end of this genocidal policy which represents a violation of human rights," he said.

Lifting the embargo improves the US humanitarian image, UN supportAmnesty International 11 --- Amnesty International, world-renowned organization that addresses humanitarian issues (“Amnesty International Annual Report 2011 – Cuba”, May 13, 2011, RefWorld, http://www.fln.dk/NR/rdonlyres/4858E8BD-DCC2-4AB8-AE35-49EED9AE3222/0/cuba018_udg130511_opt080711.pdf, accessed June 27, 2013, MY)US embargo against Cuba¶ The US embargo continued to affect the economic, social and cultural development of ¶ the Cuban people and in particular the most vulnerable groups. ¶ According to the UN Population Fund, treatments for children and young people with ¶ bone cancer and for patients suffering from cancer of the retina were not readily ¶ available because they were commercialized under US patents. The embargo also ¶ affected the procurement of antiretroviral drugs used to treat children with HIV/AIDS. ¶ Under the terms of the US embargo, medical equipment and medicines manufactured ¶ under US patents cannot be sold to the Cuban government. ¶ In September, US President Barack Obama renewed the extension of economic and ¶ financial sanctions against Cuba as provided for in the Trading With the Enemy Act. In ¶ August, he relaxed travel restrictions on academic, religious and cultural groups under ¶ the "people-to-people" policy. For the 19th consecutive year, a resolution calling on the ¶ USA to end its embargo against Cuba was adopted by an overwhelming majority (187 ¶ votes to two) in the UN General Assembly.

The embargo fails and causes humanitarian issues Bandow 12 --- Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and a former special assistant to former US president Ronald Reagan (“Time to End the Cuba Embargo”, December 11, 2012, Cato Institute, http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/time-end-cuba-embargo, accessed July 4, 2013, MY)The U.S. government has waged economic war against the Castro regime for half a century. The policy may have been worth a try during the Cold War, but the embargo has failed to liberate the Cuban people. It is time to end sanctions against Havana.¶ Decades ago the Castro brothers lead a revolt against a nasty authoritarian, Fulgencio Batista. After coming to power in 1959, they created a police state, targeted U.S. commerce, nationalized American assets, and allied with the Soviet Union. Although Cuba was but a small island nation, the Cold War magnified its perceived importance.¶ Washington reduced Cuban sugar import quotas in July 1960. Subsequently U.S. exports were limited, diplomatic ties were severed, travel was restricted, Cuban imports were banned, Havana’s American assets were frozen, and almost all travel to Cuba was banned. Washington also pressed its allies to impose sanctions.¶ These various measures had no evident effect, other than to intensify Cuba’s reliance on the Soviet Union. Yet the collapse of the latter nation had no impact on U.S. policy. In 1992, Congress banned American subsidiaries from doing business in Cuba and in 1996, it penalized foreign firms that trafficked in expropriated U.S. property. Executives from such companies even were banned from traveling to America.¶ On occasion Washington relaxed one aspect or another of the embargo, but in general continued to tighten restrictions, even over Cuban Americans. Enforcement is not easy, but Uncle Sam tries his best. For instance, according to the Government Accountability Office, Customs and Border Protection increased its secondary inspection of passengers arriving from Cuba to reflect an increased risk of embargo violations after the 2004 rule changes, which, among other things, eliminated the allowance for travelers to import a small amount of Cuban products for personal consumption.¶ “¶ Lifting sanctions would be a victory not for Fidel Castro, but for the power of free people to spread liberty.”¶ Three years ago, President Barack Obama loosened regulations on Cuban Americans, as well as telecommunications between the United States and Cuba. However, the law sharply constrains the president’s discretion. Moreover, UN

Ambassador Susan Rice said that the embargo will continue until Cuba is free.¶ It is far past time to end the embargo.¶ During the Cold War, Cuba offered a potential advanced military outpost for the Soviet Union. Indeed, that role led to the Cuban missile crisis. With the failure of the U.S.-supported Bay of Pigs invasion, economic pressure appeared to be Washington’s best strategy for ousting the Castro dictatorship.¶ However, the end of the Cold War left Cuba strategically irrelevant. It is a poor country with little ability to harm the United States. The Castro regime might still encourage unrest, but its survival has no measurable impact on any important U.S. interest.¶ The regime remains a humanitarian travesty, of course. Nor are Cubans the only victims: three years ago the regime jailed a State Department contractor for distributing satellite telephone equipment in Cuba. But Havana is not the only regime to violate human rights. Moreover, experience has long demonstrated that it is virtually impossible for outsiders to force democracy. Washington often has used sanctions and the Office of Foreign Assets Control currently is enforcing around 20 such programs, mostly to little effect.¶ The policy in Cuba obviously has failed. The regime remains in power. Indeed, it has consistently used the embargo to justify its own mismanagement, blaming poverty on America. Observed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: “It is my personal belief that the Castros do not want to see an end to the embargo and do not want to see normalization with the United States, because they would lose all of their excuses for what hasn’t happened in Cuba in the last 50 years.” Similarly, Cuban exile Carlos Saladrigas of the Cuba Study Group argued that keeping the “embargo, maintaining this hostility, all it does is strengthen and embolden the hardliners.” ¶ Cuban human rights activists also generally oppose sanctions. A decade ago I (legally) visited Havana, where I met Elizardo Sanchez Santa Cruz, who suffered in communist prisons for eight years. He told me that the “sanctions policy gives the government a good alibi to justify the failure of the totalitarian model in Cuba.”

The embargo’s cost on Cuban people is immense Crowther 09 --- Colonel Glenn A. Crowther, research professor at Strategic Studies Institute (“KISS THE EMBARGO GOODBYE”, February 2009, SSI, http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/pub906.pdf, accessed July 4, 2013,MY)The cost to the Cuban people has been huge. Besides the violence visited upon them ¶ by their repressive regime, there is also the economic and quality of life costs of ¶ isolation. Castroite resistance to democratic and economic reforms combines with the ¶ deleterious effects of the embargo. The Cuban people, who enjoyed one of the largest ¶ economies in the Western Hemisphere in 1959, suffer from poverty stemming from a ¶ paucity of jobs and medical problems caused by a lack of protein and vitamins in their ¶ diet. ¶ The one reason that no one mentions is that the embargo provides an excuse for the ¶ regime‟s tyranny. Dissidence is punished by jail or execution. The 75 dissidents who ¶ met with the head of the U.S. interest section in Havana were imprisoned for sentences ¶ that averaged 17 years. The government maintains a relatively large Ministry of the ¶ Interior to provide internal security. It also maintains the Comités para la Defensa de la ¶ Revolución (Committees for the Defense of the Revolution [CDR]), which makes ¶ neighbors spy on neighbors and family members spy on each other. The government ¶ points to U.S. actions as the reason for that internal security.

The embargo has hurt the Cuban people and caused a human rights violation AAWH 97 - American Association for World Health, private national organization in the U.S. dedicated to funneling a broad spectrum of critical national and international health information to Americans [“Denial of Food and Medicine: The Impact of the U.S. Embargo On The Health And Nutrition In Cuba,” American Association for World Health, 3/1997, http://www.cubasolidarity.net/aawh.html, accessed: 6/27/13, JK]

After a year-long investigation, the American Association for World Health has determined that the U.S. embargo of Cuba has dramatically harmed the health and nutrition of large numbers of ordinary Cuban citizens. As documented by the attached report, it is our expert medical opinion that the U.S. embargo has caused a significant rise in suffering-and even deaths-in Cuba. For several decades the U.S. embargo has imposed significant financial burdens on the Cuban health care system. But since 1992 the number of unmet medical needs patients going without essential drugs or doctors performing medical procedures without adequate equipment-has sharply accelerated. This trend is directly linked to the fact that in

1992 the U.S. trade embargo-one of the most stringent embargoes of its kind, prohibiting the sale of food and sharply restricting the sale of medicines and medical equipment-was further tightened by the 1992 Cuban Democracy Act. A humanitarian catastrophe has been averted only because the Cuban government has maintained a high level of budgetary support for a health care system designed to deliver primary and preventive health care to all of its citizens. Cuba still has an infant mortality rate half that of the city of Washington, D.C.. Even so, the U.S. embargo of food and the de facto embargo on medical supplies has wreaked havoc with the island's model primary health care system. The crisis has been compounded by the country's generally weak economic resources and by the loss of trade with the Soviet bloc.

Status quo is inhumane.Lloyd, 2011 [Delia Lloyd, Delia, freelance writer and political science professor at the University of Chicago, “Ten Reasons to Lift the Cuba Embargo”, Politics Daily, 2011 , http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/08/24/ten-reasons-to-lift-the-cuba-embargo/, Accessed: June 28, 2013, KH)It's inhumane. If strategic arguments don't persuade you that it's time to end the embargo, then perhaps humanitarian arguments will. For as anyone who's traveled to the island knows, there's a decidedly enclave-like feel to those areas of the economy where capitalism has been allowed to flourish in a limited sense (e.g. tourism) and the rest of the island, which feels very much like the remnant of an exhausted socialist economic model. When I went there in the 1990s with my sister, I remember the throngs of men who would cluster outside the tourist haunts. They'd hope to persuade visitors like me to pretend to be their escort so they could sneak into the fancier hotels and nightclubs, which they could not enter otherwise. Horse -- yes, horse-- was a common offering on menus back then. That situation has apparently eased in recent years as the government has opened up more sectors of the economy to ordinary Cubans. But the selective nature of that deregulation has only exacerbated economic inequalities. Again, one can argue that the problem here is one of poor domestic policy choices, rather than the embargo. But it's not clear that ordinary Cubans perceive that distinction. Moreover, when you stand in the airport and watch tourists disembark with bucket-loads of basic medical supplies, which they promptly hand over to their (native) friends and family, it's hard not to feel that U.S. policy is perpetuating an injustice.

Embargo currently violating human rights

Charbonneau 12-Louis Charbonneau, is a journalist working for the Reuters news agency. He is currently posted at the United Nations. He has been working for Reuters since 2001. He previously worked for BridgeNews (formerly Knight-Ridder Financial) and United Press International.(U.N. urges end to U.S. Cuba embargo for 21st year,reuters.com, Nov 13, 2012, http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/13/us-cuba-embargo-un-idUSBRE8AC11820121113, June 28, 2013, KH)Rodriguez said the "extraterritoriality" of the blockade measures - the fact that Washington pressures other countries to adhere to the U.S. embargo - violates international law. He added that the blockade is not in U.S. interests and harms its credibility."It leads the U.S. to adopt costly double standards," he said, adding that the embargo has failed to achieve its objectives of pressuring the government to introduce economic and political freedoms and comply with international human rights standards."There is no legitimate or moral reason to maintain this embargo that is anchored in the Cold War," he said.He said it qualified as a "act of genocide" against Cuba and was a "massive, flagrant and systematic violation of the human rights of an entire people."

Embargo bad – hurts Cuban peopleKaron 10 – Tony Karon, senior editor at TIME (“Do We Really Need an Embargo Against Cuba?”, TIME, 4/21/10, http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,48773,00.html, 7/2/13, ckr)It actually helps keep Castro in powerNever mind the fact that it's failed to dislodge him after 38 years, the embargo is now Castro's catchall excuse for every ill that plagues his decaying socialist society . It helps him paint the U.S. as hostile and an imminent threat in the eyes of the Cuban people , which is how he rationalizes his authoritarian politics . Opening the floodgates of trade will leave Castro with no excuses, and interaction with the U.S. will hasten the collapse of his archaic system.What's good for China is good for CubaChina is a lot more repressive than Cuba , and yet we've normalized trade relations with Beijing on the argument that trade will hasten reform and democratization . We're even lifting sanctions against North Korea despite the fact that their missile program is supposedly a threat to our skies, whereas the Pentagon has long since concluded that Cuba represents no threat to U.S. security . It's nonsensical to argue that trade induces better behavior from communist regimes in China and North Korea, but will do the opposite in Cuba.It mostly hurts the people it's supposed to helpYou can be sure Fidel Castro isn't going to bed hungry and or suffering through a headache because there's no Tylenol to be had. Yet millions of his people are suffering all manner of deprivations that the could be eased by lifting an embargo that's never going to overthrow him anyway. Stopping Cubans from benefiting from trade with the U.S. and interaction with American tourists leaves Castro unscathed, but it deprives the Cuban people of a taste of freedom that could only undermine a repressive regime.

Embargo hurts our international standing and Cuban human rightsRT 12- (“Condemned…again: 'Genocidal' US embargo on Cuba slammed by UN for 21st year,” 11/14/12, http://rt.com/news/cuba-embargo-un-vote-635/, 7/2/13, CAS)The UN has urged the US to lift the 52-year trade embargo with Cuba in an almost-unanimous vote. Cuba likened the blockade to “genocide” and said it was disappointed that Obama had not taken measures to lift the disputed embargo.Of the 193 members of the UN assembly, 188 voted to abolish what is widely perceived as an illegal blockade. The only two nations that got behind the US were Israel and the Pacific nation of Palau, while two countries abstained from the vote.This is the 21st year running that the UN has decried the American economic sanctions against the island nation.Cuba’s Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez addressed the assembly, voicing Cuban disappointment that despite Obama’s pledge to open a new chapter in Cuban-American relations on assuming office four years ago, no steps had been taken the lift the crippling embargo."The reality is that the last four years have been characterized by the persistent tightening of …the embargo," he said.The Cuban government has calculated that since the blockade was enforced in 1960 the total financial damage to Cuba’s economy is around US$3 trillion.Rodriguez qualified the maintenance of the embargo as tantamount to “genocide” and a “massive, flagrant and systematic violation of the human rights” of the people of Cuba.

Embargo fails, and hurts Cuban human rights and global relationsRatliff 09- William Ratliff, Research Fellow at the Independent Institute and a member of the Board of Advisors of the Institute’s Center on Global Prosperity, (“Why and How to Lift the U.S. Embargo on Cuba,” 5/7/09, http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=2496, 7/3/13, CAS)The embargo made sense during the Cold War, but no longer. A majority of Americans and Cubans now oppose it, including a majority of Cuban dissidents in Cuba and Cuban-Americans in Miami. Only the U.S. Congress still won’t move as a body, bound as it is by inertia and domestic political calculations. Alas, its role is critical since the passage of the 1996 Helms Burton Act, which codifies the embargo.How has the embargo failed? It has not brought down the Castro brothers, advanced democracy, freedom, human rights or prosperity in Cuba, or gotten compensation for Americans whose assets Cuba seized decades ago. It largely denies Americans the freedom to travel to Cuba, or to trade freely and otherwise interact Cubans on the island.And in recent decades it has given Fidel the scapegoat he needs—us—to excuse his economic utopianism and brutality.Supporters of the embargo see it as an expression of America’s moral indignation at Castro’s brutal policies. By limiting the flow of dollars to Cuba we deny some funds to Cuban security forces, as they argue, but we simultaneously withhold support for the daily lives of the Cuban people.For twenty years the embargo placated the very noisy Cuban American community in Florida, but by late 2008 even a majority of Cuban Americans, according to a Florida International University poll, had turned against it. It isn’t that Cuban Americans are going soft on Fidel, but that a majority finally see or admit that this policy is more harmful than positive to its own interests.And it is harmful to U.S. interests as well, which ought to be our primary concern, alienating the Hemisphere and the world as a whole while having only negative impacts in Cuba.

The embargo only strengthens Castro- lifting it will bring changeEstevez 12- Carlos Estevez, staff columnist at nyunews.com, (“Ending embargo means real freedome for Cuba,” 10/22/12, http://nyunews.com/2012/10/22/estevez-3/, Accessed: 6/28/13, CAS)The Cold War has faded into history, but the embargo still haunts the lives of Cubans. More importantly, it breathes life into the Castro regime. A quick glance at the different interest groups vying for and against the embargo reveals why the status quo persists and how it has divided Cuba.Democrats generally oppose the embargo, advocating compromise and discourse with Cuba. Republicans insist that the embargo is a crucial tool in negotiating a democratic transition within the island. The U.S. political system has essentially transformed this human rights issue into a choice between two diametrically opposed viewpoints. Both sides seek the same goal of attaining freedom for the Cuban people from their government, and both share a common ignorance as to the impact of the embargo on Cubans or on the regime. Politicians have taken strategic stances on this issue for the sake of elections, mainly appeasing the Cuban-American voting bloc with little regard to the people affected by the embargo.Cuban-Americans have ruled the discourse on the embargo, as they are among the few citizens with an interest in Cuban politics. The unacquainted observer might note that they stand united for keeping the embargo. A closer inspection reveals a highly divided community as diverse as the term Cuban-American, which more accurately describes 50 years of continuous migration rather than a given ethnic group. Many Cubans left at the onset of the revolution, leaving behind all of their belongings. Others left in Operation Peter Pan, in which parents sent their children to the United States due to rumors that the Castro regime would ship kids to the Soviet Union. These politically active groups mainly vote in favor of the embargo, directly influenced by their personal experiences.Younger generations of Cubans, those who left in the Mariel boatlift of 1980 and the Rafter movement of the ’90s, have slowly shifted the Cuban-American stance on the embargo. Perhaps because they lived through the hardships of the Cuban reality, they see little benefit in keeping the embargo.Even within Cuba, the ruling elite benefits from the embargo while the average citizen suffers. Cuban Communism has made most citizens equally poor, and these poor Cubans oppose the embargo, while the government uses it as an excuse for all of Cuba’s dilemmas, including frequent electricity, food and Internet shortages. For this very reason, the Cuban government would face significant questions if the

embargo ended. In fact, the word embargo rarely figures in Cuban politics. Instead, the Castro regime refers to it as a blockade. This implies that the United States blocks Cuba from contact with the outside world, which greatly overestimates the embargo’s impact on the Cuban economy. This ruling elite does not significantly suffer from the embargo. They enjoy a high standard of living, profiting from Cuba’s resources. Instead, the embargo only serves to legitimize Cuba’s revolution as a force struggling against the United States.Those who seek true freedom for Cubans and the end of the Castro regime should advocate repealing the embargo. Both the Castro regime and U.S. politicians benefit from the status quo at the expense of dividing and subjugating the Cuban people at home and abroad.

Lifting embargo contributes to humanitarian, diplomatic, and economic strengthTrani, 6/23 – Eugene P. Trani, president emeritus and University Distinguished Professor at Virginia Commonwealth University. (“Trani: End the embargo on Cuba”, Richmond Times-Dispatch, June 23, 2013, http://www.timesdispatch.com/opinion/their-opinion/columnists-blogs/guest-columnists/end-the-embargo-on-cuba/article_ba3e522f-8861-5f3c-bee9-000dffff8ce7.html, accessed: 7/4/13, LR)

What we heard was puzzlement about the embargo and strong feelings that it was hurting the people of Cuba. In fact, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the absolute poverty rate has increased significantly in Cuba. It was also evident that there is visible decline in major infrastructure areas such as housing.Today, there seem to be both humanitarian and economic factors, particularly with the significant growth of the non-governmental section of the economy that could factor in a change in American policy. There is also a major diplomatic factor in that no other major country, including our allies, follows our policy.What a positive statement for American foreign policy in Latin America and throughout the world it would be for the United States to end its embargo and establish normal diplomatic relations with Cuba. We would be taking both a humanitarian course of action and making a smart diplomatic gesture. The time is right and all our policy makers need is courage to bring about this change.

Travel is a basic human right that we are denied by the embargo.Paul 13 (Ron Paul, “Why Can’t We All Travel To Cuba?”, Antiwar.com, April 16 2013, http://original.antiwar.com/paul/2013/04/15/why-cant-we-all-travel-to-cuba/, Accessed: 7/3/13, EH)Earlier this month, entertainers Jay-Z and Beyoncé were given a license by the US government to travel to Cuba. Because it is not otherwise legal for Americans to travel to Cuba, this trip was only permitted as a “cultural exchange” by the US Treasury Department. Many suspect that the permission was granted at least partly due to the fame, wealth, and political connections of the couple.Some Members of Congress who continue to support the failed Cuba embargo, demanded that the Administration explain why these two celebrities were allowed to visit Cuba. The trip looked suspiciously like tourism, they argued in a letter to the White House, and American tourism is still not allowed in Cuba. They were photographed eating at the best restaurants, dancing, and meeting with average Cubans, which these Members of Congress frowned on.Perhaps it is true that this couple used their celebrity status and ties to the White House to secure permission to travel, but the real question is, why can’t the rest of us go?The Obama administration has lifted some of the most onerous restrictions on travel to Cuba imposed under the previous Bush administration, but for the average American, travel to the island is still difficult if not impossible.However, even those who are permitted to go to Cuba are not allowed to simply engage in tourist activities — to spend their money as they wish or relax on a beach.The US government demands that the few Americans it allows to travel to Cuba only engage in what it deems “purposeful travel,” to “support civil society in Cuba; enhance the free flow of information to, from, and among the Cuban people; and help promote their independence from Cuban authorities.” They must prove that they maintain a full-time schedule of educational activities, according to Treasury guidelines for “people-to-people” travel.

Leave it to the federal government to make the prospect of visiting that sunny Caribbean island sound so miserable.The reason the US so severely restricts and scripts the activities of the few Americans allowed to travel to Cuba is that it believes travel must promote the goal of taking “important steps in reaching the widely shared goal of a Cuba that respects the basic rights of all its citizens.”Although I have no illusions about the Cuban government – or any government for that matter — it is ironic that the US chose to locate a prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba because the indefinite detention and torture that took place there would have been illegal on US soil. Further, the US government continues to hold more than 100 prisoners there indefinitely even though they have not been found guilty of a crime and in fact dozens are “cleared for release” but not allowed to leave.Does the administration really believe that the rest of the world is not annoyed by its “do as we say, not as we do” attitude?We are told by supporters of the Cuba embargo and travel ban that we must take such measures to fight the communists in charge of that country. Americans must be prohibited from traveling to Cuba, they argue, because tourist dollars would only be used to prop up the unelected Castro regime. Ironically, our restrictive travel policies toward Cuba actually mirror the travel policies of the communist countries past and present . Under communist rule in the former Soviet Union and elsewhere it was only the well-connected elites who were allowed to travel overseas – people like Jay-Z and Beyoncé. The average citizen was not permitted the right.Although the current administration’s slight loosening of the restrictions is a small step in the right direction, it makes no sense to continue this nearly half-century old failed policy. Freedom to travel is a fundamental right. Restricting this fundamental right in the name of human rights is foolish and hypocritical.

Embargo promotes poverty in Cuba – gives Castro more powerHenderson 08 – David Henderson, research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and is also associate professor of economics at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California (“End the Cuban Embargo”, AntiWar, 2/21/08, http://antiwar.com/henderson/?articleid=12395, accessed: 7/4/13, ckr)Which brings us to the second argument for the embargo, which seems to go as follows.By squeezing the Cuban economy enough, the U.S. government can make Cubans even poorer than Fidel Castro has managed to over the past 48 years, through his imposition of Stalin-style socialism. Ultimately, the theory goes, some desperate Cubans will rise up and overthrow Castro.There are at least three problems with this "make the victims hurt more" strategy. First, it's profoundly immoral. It could succeed only by making average Cubans – already living in grinding poverty – even poorer. Most of them are completely innocent and, indeed, many of them already want to get rid of Castro. And consider the irony: A defining feature of socialism is the prohibition of voluntary exchange between people. Pro-embargo Americans typically want to get rid of socialism in Cuba . Yet their solution – prohibiting trade with Americans – is the very essence of socialism .The second problem is more practical: It hasn't worked. To be effective, an embargo must prevent people in the target country from getting goods, or at least substantially increase the cost of getting goods. But competition is a hardy weed that shrugs off governmental attempts to suppress it. Companies in many countries, especially Canada, produce and sell goods that are close substitutes for the U.S. goods that can't be sold to Cuba. Wander around Cuba, and you're likely to see beach umbrellas advertising Labatt's beer, McCain's (no relation) French fries, and President's Choice cola. Moreover, even U.S. goods for which there are no close substitutes are often sold to buyers in other countries, who then resell to Cuba. A layer of otherwise unnecessary middlemen is added, pushing up prices somewhat, but the price increase is probably small for most goods.Some observers have argued that the very fact that the embargo does little harm means that it should be kept because it's a cheap way for U.S. politicians to express moral outrage against Castro. But arguing for a policy on the grounds that it's ineffective should make people question the policy's wisdom.Third, the policy is politically effective, but not in the way the embargo's proponents would wish. The embargo surely makes Cubans somewhat more anti-American than they would be otherwise , and it makes them somewhat more in favor of – or at least less against – Castro . C astro has never talked honestly about the embarg o: he has always called it a blockade, which it manifestly is not. But he has gotten political mileage by blaming the embargo, rather than socialism, for Cuba's awful economic plight and reminds his subjects ceaselessly that the U.S. government is the instigator . Some Cubans probably believe him.

Empirics prove- trade helps human rightsFarrell 09- Chris Farrell, graduate of Stanford and the London School of Economics and economics editor of Marketplace Money, (“Benefits of lifting the Cuban embargo,” 4/16/09, https://www.marketplace.org/topics/world/benefits-lifting-cuban-embargo, 7/3/13, CAS)Farrell: I think the real lesson that you take from this is that trade is revolutionary, commerce is revolutionary. And trade is not just money and entrepreneurial opportunities. It also means exposing an economy to different ideas, and ideas that are an anathema to a bureaucracy that is in power. And we have a very good counter-example. Remember in the 1990's, the Clinton administration came under a lot of pressure to set up trade embargoes with China because a lot of the human rights violations. And I'm not minimizing, by the way -- I am not minimizing human rights violations in China, I am not minimizing human rights violations in Cuba. But the administration continued the trade with China, and it was the right move -- China is now more integrated into the global economy, there's a lot more information in that economy, it's moving in the right direction. And so that's what I want to see trade with Cuba. I think that's the real lesson to take here.

Embargo a form of GenocideSympatico 10 (“Is the U.S. Embargo on Cuba a Form of Genocide?”, Amnesty International, September 8, 2010,

http://www3.sympatico.ca/danchristienses/CubaFAQ137.html, Accessed: July 2, 2013, SD) ¶ What is genocide?¶ To answer this question, we must define what is meant by genocide. According to Oxford English Dictionary, genocide is "the mass extermination of human beings, esp. of a particular race or nation."¶ The Law¶ Under international law the legal definition is given in Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention and covers a much wider range of crimes. Article 2 states:¶ In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: ¶ (a) Killing members of the group; ¶ (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; ¶ (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; ¶ (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; ¶ (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.¶ Item (c) would seem to be the most relevant in the case of the US embargo on Cuba. It tells us that, to prove the perpetrators of these sanctions are guilty of genocide, we do not need to prove that any deaths were directly attributable to these sanctions. We are required only to prove that the perpetrators deliberately inflicted on the Cuban people conditions of life calculated to bring about the group's physical destruction in whole or in part. This is relatively easy to prove.¶ A Brief History¶ The US embargo first came into effect during the Kennedy administration in 1962. Thirty years later in 1992, shortly after the collapse of Cuba's main trading partner, the former USSR, the US regime moved in for the kill with intensified trade sanctions under its so-called Cuban Democracy Act, also known as the Torricelli Act. ¶ Four years later in 1996, with the Cuban people having weathered the worst of the economic collapse and as defiant as ever, the US embargo was tightened further still with the introduction of the so-called Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act, also known as the Helms-Burton Act.¶ Today, while there have since been limited openings in one-way trade in food and medicine, these two laws form the legislative underpinning of the US embargo, a master plan to wreck the Cuban economy and thereby deprive the population of many of the essentials of life. The all too predictable outcomes have been documented by various international humanitarian and human rights groups. ¶ From "The US attack on Cuba's health," Canadian Medical Association Journal, August 1, 1997:¶ In 1992 Cuba was in a severe economic depression, largely resulting from a loss of preferential trade with the Soviet bloc. Cuba turned to US foreign subsidiaries, from whom it received $500-600 million per year in imports -- 90% of which was food and medicine. The American Public Health Association warned the US government that tightening the embargo would lead to the abrupt cessation of this supply of essential goods and result in widespread famine. Indeed, 5 months after passage of the CDA [Cuba Democracy Act] , food shortages in Cuba set the scene

for the worst epidemic of neurologic disease this century. More than 50,000 people suffered from optic neuropathy, deafness, loss of sensation and pain in the extremities, and a spinal cord disorder that impaired walking and bladder control.¶ That the US embargo has harmed the Cuban people has also been documented by the American Association for World Health. It performed a year-long review of the implications of embargo restrictions which included on-site visits to 46 treatment centers and related facilities, 160 interviews with medical professionals and other specialists, government officials, representatives of non-governmental organizations, churches and international aid agencies. Their 300 page report, "Denial of Food and Medicine: THE IMPACT OF THE U.S. EMBARGO ON HEALTH AND NUTRITION IN CUBA," dated March 1997, concluded:¶ After a year-long investigation, the American Association for World Health has determined that the U.S. embargo of Cuba has dramatically harmed the health and nutrition of large numbers of ordinary Cuban citizens. As documented by the attached report, it is our expert medical opinion that the U.S. embargo has caused a significant rise in suffering -- and even deaths -- in Cuba. For several decades the U.S. embargo has imposed significant financial burdens on the Cuban health care system.¶ Clearly then these sanctions were meant to kill. It was only thanks to the renowned fighting spirit of the Cuban people, and countless acts of international solidarity, that the death count was kept to a minimum. Despite these cruel sanctions, Cuba's health care system actually continued to improve and is widely regarded as the best in Latin America. This in no way, however, diminishes the criminal responsibility of the US regime.¶ In 2003, even Amnesty International, after years of dithering, was finally forced to concede in a report actually critical of Cuba that, yes, the US embargo is:¶ (a) "highly detrimental to Cubans' enjoyment of a range of economic, social and cultural rights...¶ (b) "has had a very significant negative impact on the overall performance of the national economy, diverting the optimal allocation of resources from the prioritized areas and affecting the health programmes and services...¶ (c) "compromises the quality of life of the population, specifically the children, the elderly and the infirm...¶ (d) "is used to harm the most vulnerable members of society." ¶ And how did the Bush regime respond to these shocking revelations at the time? Had it immediately lifted the embargo, it might be argued that these outcomes were unintentional. But the regime did just the opposite -- in 2004 they actually moved to intensify these cruel sanctions! Remittances and family visits were severely curtailed in hopes of cutting off an important source of hard currency and material support for Cuban families, along with unprecedented financial restrictions on payments for shipments of food and medicine bound for Cuba. The amount of food exported to Cuba from the US declined each year for several years immediately afterward.¶ In another report critical of Cuba in 2004 (and reiterated in March 2005), the UN Human Rights Commission, as well, was forced to concede that, "It is also impossible to ignore the disastrous and lasting economic and social effects of the embargo imposed on the Cuban population over 40 years ago."¶ In January of 2005 (and 2006), Human Rights Watch reiterated that, "The U.S. economic embargo on Cuba, in effect for more than four decades, continues to impose indiscriminate hardship on the Cuban people."¶ In September, 2006, Christine Chanet, the Personal Representative of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, in another of her reports critical of Cuba, explicitly criticized the "severe restrictions caused by a disastrous embargo, exacerbated in 2004 by unbearable restrictions on the movement of persons and goods."¶ She also said that the US embargo, which she "deplores," was "not a path to democracy (sic), and should not continue." (UN HRC discussion) ¶ In November, 2006, the Miami Herald gleefully reported:¶ The Bush administration's vow to enforce U.S. regulations is stifling Cuba's ability to operate in international markets...¶ U.S. companies are allowed to export agricultural products to Cuba, provided they receive cash payments before the goods are delivered. But even cash payments must move through banks, so the restrictions are giving U.S. corporations headaches...¶ ''It's the hassle factor,'' said John Kavulich, senior policy advisor with the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, which tracks bilateral economic relations. "They've coupled rhetoric with enforcement, and it's worked!''¶ In January 2007, Amnesty International confirmed again that:¶ Amnesty International has called for the US embargo against Cuba to be lifted, as it is highly detrimental to Cubans' enjoyment of a range of economic, social and cultural rights, such as the right to food, health and sanitation -- particularly affecting the weakest and most vulnerable members of the population.¶ Conclusion¶ The genocidal intent of the Bush regime had never been more clear. Therefore, under the terms of the of the UN Genocide Convention, the US embargo does indeed appear to be a form of genocide. ¶ ¶ Follow-up, March 2009¶ Amnesty International reiterates its condemnation of the US embargo two months into the mandate of the new Barack Obama administration:¶ Amnesty International urges the US government to lift the nearly five-decade long economic and trade embargo against Cuba as it is detrimental to the fulfillment of the economic and social rights of the Cuban people. It obstructs and constrains efforts by the Cuban government to purchase essential medicines, medical equipment and supplies, food and agricultural products, construction materials and access to new technologies.¶ Source: "Cuba and the Fifth Summit of the Americas," Amnesty International, March 2009¶ ¶ Follow-up, September 2009¶ By September 2009, very little seemed to have actually changed as far as the US embargo was concerned. Eight months into President Obama's mandate, it seemed to this writer that Amnesty International had all but called for the arrests of the perpetrators of these crimes against the Cuban people! Citing the continued blocking and constraining of vital imports of medicines, supplies and technology, Amnesty called called these cruel and inhumane sanctions "immoral" and demanded that it be "lifted without further delay":¶ The US embargo against Cuba is immoral and should be lifted. It’s preventing millions of Cubans from benefiting from vital medicines and medical equipment essential for their health.¶ Source: "President Obama should take lead in lifting embargo against Cuba," Amnesty International, September 2009¶ Amnesty International calls on the US Congress to take, without further delay, the necessary steps towards lifting the economic, financial and trade embargo against Cuba....¶ The UN General Assembly has repeatedly condemned the US embargo as contrary to the Charter of the United Nations and international law....¶ The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has also reiterated its position regarding “the impact of such sanctions on the human rights of the Cuban people and, therefore, insists that the embargo be lifted...."¶ [E]xports of food and agricultural products to Cuba remain regulated by the Department of Commerce and require a licence for export or re-export. The export of medicines and medical supplies continues to be severely limited.... ¶ The restrictions imposed by the embargo help to deprive Cuba of vital access to medicines, new scientific and medical technology, food, chemical water treatment and electricity....¶ The impact of economic sanctions on health and health services is not limited to difficulties in the supply of medicine. Health and health services depend on functioning water and sanitation infrastructure, on electricity and other functioning equipment such as X-ray facilities or refrigerators to store vaccines. The financial burden and commercial barriers have led to shortages or intermittent availability of drugs, medicines, equipment and spare parts. It has also hindered the renovation of hospitals, clinics and care centres for the elderly.¶ Source: "The US embargo against Cuba: Its impact on economic and social rights," Amnesty International, September 2009¶ In addition to blocking essential imports, the US embargo also continued to impose a significant drag on the development of the Cuban economy, especially in the areas of agriculture and food production. According to at least one US agricultural expert, simply lifting the economic and financial restrictions imposed on Cuban

farmers by the US embargo would have a dramatic impact on their production levels: ¶ Cuban agriculture has such a big potential that if it were to be totally developed it could surpass the volume of production of the Free Trade Treaty [the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) presumed].¶ William A. Messina Jr., of the University of Florida's Agriculture Science Institute, said, that the communist island "has such good soil and it represents a challenge of such magnitude that, with the end of the embargo, the agricultural market impact on the continent would be larger that of the Free Trade Treaty.''¶ Source: "Cuba's agriculture shows promise," Miami Herald, September 29, 2009¶ ¶ Follow-up, September 2010¶ Amnesty International reiterates its condemnation of the US embargo:¶ [The US embargo's is] negatively affecting Cubans’ access to medicines and medical technologies and endangering the health of millions. United Nations agencies and programs operating in Cuba, such as UNICEF, UNAIDS and UNFPA, have reported that the US embargo has undermined the implementation of programs aimed at improving the living conditions of Cubans.¶ Source: "Amnesty International criticises President Obama's decision on Cuba," Amnesty International, September 8, 2010¶ ¶ Follow-up, October 2010¶ On October 26, 2010 the UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly again to condemn the US embargo. Only Israel voted with the US against the resolution. Israel trades freely with Cuba, so even this single vote cannot be seen as support for these cruel and inhumane sanctions. On this the US is truly isolated on the world stage. The only abstentions were the tiny US-island colonies in the South Pacific: Palau (pop. 20,000), Micronesia (pop. 110,000) and the Marshall Islands (pop. 60,000).

The US has a moral obligation to uphold human rights around the world-especially Cuba Edghill 12- Michael W. Edghill, teaches courses in US Government and in Latin America & the Caribbean in Fort Worth, Texas. He is a contributor to Caribbean Journal. His work has also appeared in the Yale Journal of International Affairs, Diplomatic Courier, and others,(The Moral Obligation Next Door, International Policy Digest, June 29, 2012, http://www.internationalpolicydigest.org/2012/06/29/the-moral-obligation-next-door/, Accessed: June 28, 2013, KH)

But the US is still the most powerful nation in the world. With that power often comes the expectation that the US should be the great force for peace and justice globally. If ‘American exceptionalism’ is still the modus operandi, then the US should be venturing to solve grand problems.The idea that great power brings with it a moral obligation to help those who are helpless is widely accepted in both domestic policy and in foreign policy. Much of the coming campaign will revolve around what our priorities should be and how the government can best help the American people. Additionally, the time has come for the US to reprioritize its foreign policy.US foreign policy over the last 30 years has been dominated by a series of interventions, diplomatically and militarily, in the Middle East with cursory glances towards the trouble spots in the world at that time. That focus has translated into a disproportionate amount of American resources being tied up in that region for a full generation.It is not to say that the U nited S tates does not have an obligation to come to the aid of those that are being oppressed. Assisting in the removal of violent and dangerous dictators can be seen as a just cause and something that only the US has the ability to do. There is a role for the US to play in stopping the assault on Syrian citizens by the Assad regime. There is a role for the US in standing up for pro-democracy forces in the Middle East. There is absolutely a role for the US to play when large scale humanitarian crises are present from the horn of Africa to the Hindu Kush.Unfortunately, as the riots aimed at the US by angry Afghan citizens prove, the blood and treasure spent by the United States in the Middle East may only be marginally effective.The problem, and the need to reprioritize, lay in the fact that while the State Department has been intensely focused on the Middle East, the problems of the Western Hemisphere have been largely ignored. While the moral obligation to aid the humanitarian crises in east Africa have been well documented, the humanitarian crisis of Haiti has fallen off of the radar since the immediate response after the earthquake. The UNDP Human Development Index, which ranks countries based on citizen education, life expectancy, and standard of living, consistently ranks Haiti in the bottom tier of nations along with Afghanistan and many African countries.At a time when government officials are talking of budget cuts and debt reduction, the need to have American aid dollars go towards meeting a need in a productive way is paramount. And unlike some other foreign policy investments, investments in Haiti appear to be productive according to USAID statistics which show a 6% growth in Haitian GDP in 2011.While the US government wrestles with how to effectively end the government assault on citizens in Syria, many in and out of government speak passionately about the obligation that the US has to aid in this blatant violation of human rights. Yet we rarely hear of the continued human rights abuses that occur on a daily basis just across the Florida Straits.

The governmental assault on the people of Cuba is well-hidden by Castro’s government. The principle is the same though. The people that oppose the government are assaulted and in many cases, taken away to be abused in a myriad of inhumane ways in Cuban prisons. The government that holds high the banner of defending human rights should be beating the drum every day and relentlessly calling for an end to human rights abuses in Cuba. Dissident bloggers and groups like the Ladies in White should know that they have the attention of the US government and that the continued violation of human rights 90 miles from US shores is at least as important as human rights violations halfway around the world.While the inability to provide for citizen security in many areas of the world leads to the acute fear of a failed state, similar conditions in the Western Hemisphere very rarely receive mention. Over the last decade, the American public has grown weary of nation-building and would be very reluctant to support the rebuilding of a failed state. It would be wise to be proactive in ensuring that this does not happen, especially in the Americas.The most common cause of a failed state is when the government loses the ability to maintain order and protect the security of its citizens. While the US has been deploying assets to the Middle East over the last 10 years to help secure those populations, there has been a disturbing trend in the Caribbean. The 2012 UNDP Caribbean Human Development Report cited that while most parts of the world show decreasing or stable homicide rates, the trend of violent crime in the Caribbean is increasing.Outside of war torn Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean is the most violent region in the world. A good percentage of the violence that takes place regionally is a result of drug cartel activity.Few other foreign policy issues present themselves on the streets of the United States on a daily basis in the same way that the inability of Latin American and Caribbean governments to effectively combat narcotics traffickers does. Drug consumption is linked to violence and poverty in American cities and drug trafficking is responsible for extreme violence and political instability in Latin America and the Caribbean.Yet, by way of financial assistance and directed attention, it appears that US foreign policy neglects to sincerely address these issues.The argument of whether or not the US has a moral obligation to help the vulnerable in the world is one that will continue to engage American politicians and policy makers for years to come.If we assume however, that a moral obligation does exist, then the U nited S tates should not focus so intensely on humanitarian issues halfway around the world that they miss the moral obligations that exist right next door.

Human rights Oppression Extns.

Embargo fails now—sanctions don’t promote human rightsAmash 12-- Brandon Amash, Prospect Journal writer at UCSD (“EVALUATING THE CUBAN EMBARGO”, Prospect Jounral of International Affairs at UCSD, 7/23/12, http://prospectjournal.org/2012/07/23/evaluating-the-cuban-embargo/, Accessed 7/3/12, jtc)The American embargo is not sufficient to democratize Cuba and improve human rights. Without the help and support of multilateral institutions, economic sanctions on Cuba have been ineffective. As other states trade and interact freely with Cuba, the lack of partnership with America is only a minor hindrance to Cuba’s economy. Moreover, the sanctions are detrimental to the United States economy, as Cuba could potentially be a geostrategic economic partner. More importantly, since economic sanctions are not directly related to the goal of improved human rights, the effect of these sanctions is also unrelated; continued economic sanctions against Cuba create no incentive for the Cuban government to promote better human rights, especially when the sanctions do not have international support. Empirically, it is clear that since its inception, the policy has not succeeded in promoting democratization or improving human rights. Something more must be done in order to improve the situation.

Lifting the embargo solves Cuban human rights violationsPerez 10 – Louis A. Perez Jr. Professor of history and the director of the Institute for the Study of the Americas at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. (“Want change in Cuba? End U.S. embargo”, CNN, September 21 2010, http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/09/20/perez.cuba.embargo/index.html, Accessed: 7/3/13, EH)In April 2009, the White House released a presidential memorandum declaring that democracy and human rights in Cuba were "national interests of the United States."Assistant Secretary of State Arturo Valenzuela repeated the message in May of this year to the Cuban-American National Foundation in Miami.The Obama administration, he said, wanted "to promote respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms ... in ways that will empower the Cuban people and advance our national interests."Fine words. But if the administration really wanted to do something in the national interest, it would end the 50-year-old policy of political and economic isolation of Cuba.The Cuban embargo can no longer even pretend to be plausible.On the contrary, it has contributed to the very conditions that stifle democracy and human rights there. For 50 years, its brunt has fallen mainly on the Cuban people.This is not by accident. On the contrary, the embargo was designed to impose suffering and hunger on Cubans in the hope that they would rise up and overturn their government."The only foreseeable means of alienating internal support," the Department of State insisted as early as April 1960, "is through disenchantment and disaffection based on economic dissatisfaction and hardship."The United States tightened the screws in the post-Soviet years with the Torricelli Act and the Helms-Burton Act -- measures designed, Sen. Robert Torricelli said, "to wreak havoc on that island."The post-Soviet years were indeed calamitous. Throughout the 1990s, Cubans faced growing scarcities, deteriorating services and increased rationing. Meeting the needs of ordinary life took extraordinary effort.And therein lies the problem that still bedevils U.S. policy today. Far from inspiring the Cuban people to revolution, the embargo keeps them down and distracted.Dire need and urgent want are hardly optimum circumstances for a people to contemplate the benefits of democracy. A people preoccupied with survival have little interest or inclination to bestir themselves in behalf of anything else.In Cuba, routine household errands and chores consume overwhelming amounts of time and energy, day after day: hours in lines at the local grocery store or waiting for public transportation.Cubans in vast numbers choose to emigrate. Others burrow deeper into the black market, struggling to make do and carry on. Many commit suicide. (Cuba has one of the highest suicide rates in the world; in 2000, the latest year for which we have statistics, it was 16.4 per 100,000 people.)A June 2008 survey in The New York Times reported that less than 10 percent of Cubans identified the lack of political freedom as the island's main problem. As one Cuban colleague recently suggested to me: "First necessities, later democracy."The U nited States should consider a change of policy, one that would offer Cubans relief from the all-consuming ordeal of daily life. Improved material circumstances would allow Cubans to turn their attention to other aspirations.Ending the embargo would also imply respect for the Cuban people, an acknowledgment that they have the vision and vitality to enact needed reforms, and that transition in Cuba, whatever form it may take, is wholly a Cuban affair.

A good-faith effort to engage Cuba, moreover, would counter the common perception there that the United States is a threat to its sovereignty. It would deny Cuban leaders the chance to use U.S. policy as pretext to limit public debate and stifle dissent -- all to the good of democracy and human rights.And it would serve the national interest.

Cuba is a massive violator of human rights. Perales 2010 [ Jose Perales. Perales is a senior program associate at the Woodrow Wilson Center Latin American Program. Christopher Sabatini is the senior director of policy at the Americas Society and Council of the Americas. The Woodrow Wilson Center is one of Washington’s most respected institutions of policy research and public dialogue. Created by an act of Congress in 1966, the Center is a living memorial to President Woodrow Wilson and his ideals of a more informed public policy commu- nity in Washington. It supports research on in- ternational policy issues; organizes conferences, seminars, and working groups; and offers resi- dential fellowships for scholars, journalists and policymakers. Center director Lee H. Hamilton is a widely respected former member of Congress who chaired the House International Relations Committee. The Latin American Program focu- ses attention on U.S.-Latin American relations and important issues in the region, including democratic governance, citizen security, peace processes, drug policy, decentralization, and economic development and equality. “The United States and Cuba: Implications of an Economic Relationship” WOODROW WILSON CENTER LATIN AMERICAN PROGRAM. http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/LAP_Cuba_Implications.pdf August 2010 Accessed: July 3, 2013. AK]Whether or not one agrees with the U.S. embargo against Cuba, what must be kept in mind is the fact that the embargo is there for reasons of human rights, argued Christopher Sabatini, policy director at the Council of the Americas, and that has been how the embargo been defended. And in this we can’t lose sight of the fact that Cuba’s record on human rights is abysmal. The regime currently has detained over 200 political prisoners, many of whom have been arrested for the vague charge of “dangerousness.” Cuba violates freedom of association, strictly limits freedom of expression, and systematically violates the core covenants of the International Labour Organization (ILO). When the debate strays from this central issue of rights, Sabatini stated, we lose sight of the real issues facing Cuba and Cuban citizens today. For this reason, any and all changes to the U.S. embargo must first and foremost be geared toward strengthening the hand of the island’s independent sectors. According to Sabatini, there is broad scope in the United States for the executive to make regulatory changes that can give U.S. businesses and institutional actors greater scope to begin developing closer relations inside Cuba.This is important because any change to the status quo in bilateral economic relations will start with the executive’s authority over the embargo’s regulations. Indeed, a quick perusal of past efforts at dismantling U.S. embargoes—in particular, against Vietnam—reveals that terminating an embargo has never been the result of a straight up-or-down congressional vote. Instead, this has been the result of slight, incremental regulatory changes that have served to allow independent actors to develop their own contacts with counterparts on the island and empower people. These made the incentives for change easier to recognize, built an active, vested coalition supporting broader change, and made dismantling more palatable to political audiences.

Human rights Solvency Extns.

Lifting the embargo solves Cuban human rights violationsPerez 10 – Louis A. Perez Jr. Professor of history and the director of the Institute for the Study of the Americas at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. (“Want change in Cuba? End U.S. embargo”, CNN, September 21 2010, http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/09/20/perez.cuba.embargo/index.html, Accessed: 7/3/13, EH)In April 2009, the White House released a presidential memorandum declaring that democracy and human rights in Cuba were "national interests of the United States."Assistant Secretary of State Arturo Valenzuela repeated the message in May of this year to the Cuban-American National Foundation in Miami.The Obama administration, he said, wanted "to promote respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms ... in ways that will empower the Cuban people and advance our national interests."Fine words. But if the administration really wanted to do something in the national interest , it would end the 50-year-old policy of political and economic isolation of Cuba.The Cuban embargo can no longer even pretend to be plausible.On the contrary, it has contributed to the very conditions that stifle democracy and human rights there. For 50 years, its brunt has fallen mainly on the Cuban people.This is not by accident. On the contrary, the embargo was designed to impose suffering and hunger on Cubans in the hope that they would rise up and overturn their government."The only foreseeable means of alienating internal support," the Department of State insisted as early as April 1960, "is through disenchantment and disaffection based on economic dissatisfaction and hardship."The United States tightened the screws in the post-Soviet years with the Torricelli Act and the Helms-Burton Act -- measures designed, Sen. Robert Torricelli said, "to wreak havoc on that island."The post-Soviet years were indeed calamitous. Throughout the 1990s, Cubans faced growing scarcities, deteriorating services and increased rationing. Meeting the needs of ordinary life took extraordinary effort.And therein lies the problem that still bedevils U.S. policy today. Far from inspiring the Cuban people to revolution, the embargo keeps them down and distracted.Dire need and urgent want are hardly optimum circumstances for a people to contemplate the benefits of democracy. A people preoccupied with survival have little interest or inclination to bestir themselves in behalf of anything else.In Cuba, routine household errands and chores consume overwhelming amounts of time and energy, day after day: hours in lines at the local grocery store or waiting for public transportation.Cubans in vast numbers choose to emigrate. Others burrow deeper into the black market, struggling to make do and carry on. Many commit suicide. (Cuba has one of the highest suicide rates in the world; in 2000, the latest year for which we have statistics, it was 16.4 per 100,000 people.)A June 2008 survey in The New York Times reported that less than 10 percent of Cubans identified the lack of political freedom as the island's main problem. As one Cuban colleague recently suggested to me: "First necessities, later democracy."The United States should consider a change of policy, one that would offer Cubans relief from the all-consuming ordeal of daily life. Improved material circumstances would allow Cubans to turn their attention to other aspirations.Ending the embargo would also imply respect for the Cuban people, an acknowledgment that they have the vision and vitality to enact needed reforms, and that transition in Cuba, whatever form it may take, is wholly a Cuban affair.A good-faith effort to engage Cuba, moreover, would counter the common perception there that the United States is a threat to its sovereignty. It would deny Cuban leaders the chance to use U.S. policy as pretext to limit public debate and stifle dissent -- all to the good of democracy and human rights.And it would serve the national interest.

Lifting tourism ban supports human rightsSchlesinger 09-- Robert Schlesinger, managing editor for opinion at U.S. News and World Report, author of "White House Ghosts: Presidents and Their Speechwriters." (“It's Time to End the Cuba Travel Ban (the Embargo Too)”, U.S. News, 4/1/2009, http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/robert-schlesinger/2009/04/01/its-time-to-end-the-cuba-travel-ban-the-embargo-too, Accessed 7/3/13, jtc)To be clear: The trade embargo would still be in place, but tourism would be good to go. So a company couldn't do business in Cuba, but any of us could fly down there and flood the place with dollars. It's a start, and I'll take it.¶ Speaking of floods of dollars, the L.A. Times cites a 2002 study that estimates lifting the travel ban would produced between $1.2 billion and $1.6 billion

annually and create as many as 23,000 new jobs. I'll take that too.¶ Of course, much like their nemesis, the anti-Castro hard-liners in Congress hold on:¶ Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) strongly opposes the measure. He warned that flooding Cuba with tourists and dollars would only sustain the Castro regime. ... Martinez accused the Chamber of Commerce and business interests of seeking profits at the expense of freedom and democracy.¶ "They are not acting from a moral standpoint," he said. "They are simply acting from an economic advantage standpoint."¶ Three points here: The embargo does more to help the Castro regime than hurt it, by giving the Cuban government a standing excuse for whatever troubles the country has and an enemy against which to rally their citizens.¶ Second, since Senator Martinez is so concerned about morality of international trade, I assume that he plans to introduce legislation imposing a similar trade and travel embargo on China, right?¶ Third, speaking of oppressive governments, Kevin Drum makes a great point about the travel ban:¶ The trade embargo against Cuba has long outlived whatever usefulness it might have had. It accomplishes nothing and has turned us into an international joke. Still, it's well within the bounds of normal international relations. I don't like it, but it's not fundamentally antidemocratic or an assault on basic freedoms.¶ The travel ban has always been in a separate class. Autocracies and dictatorships control the movements of their subjects, but free citizens of a liberal democracy should be able to travel wherever they want . So whatever happens with the trade embargo, removing the travel ban should be a no-brainer. This is America, not North Korea.

US Should lift embargo to improve Cuban human rightsAmash 12-- Brandon Amash, Prospect Journal writer at UCSD (“EVALUATING THE CUBAN EMBARGO”, Prospect Jounral of International Affairs at UCSD, 7/23/12, http://prospectjournal.org/2012/07/23/evaluating-the-cuban-embargo/, Accessed 7/3/12, jtc)Although America’s previous policies of intervention, use of force and economic sanctions have all failed at achieving democratization in Cuba, not all options have been exhausted. One policy alternative for promoting democracy and human rights in Cuba that the United States has not attempted is the exact opposite of the approach it has taken for the past half century. Namely, the United States should lift the embargo on Cuba and reopen diplomatic relations in order to work internationally on improving human rights in Cuba. Unless Cuba, as a rogue state, is isolated internationally, rather than merely by the United States, the human rights situation in Cuba may never improve. A fresh policy of engagement towards Cuba has been delayed long enough.

Improved relations leads to international promotion of human rights in CubaAmash 12-- Brandon Amash, Prospect Journal writer at UCSD (“EVALUATING THE CUBAN EMBARGO”, Prospect Jounral of International Affairs at UCSD, 7/23/12, http://prospectjournal.org/2012/07/23/evaluating-the-cuban-embargo/, Accessed 7/3/12, jtc)With diplomatic relations in place, the United States may directly promote human rights in the country through negotiations, conferences, arbitration and mediation. Providing the support, resources, and infrastructure to promote democratic systems in Cuba could produce immense improvements to the human rights situation in the nation. Normalizing diplomatic relations with the state will also allow America to truly support freedom of opinion and expression in Cuba, which it cannot currently promote under the isolationist policy. Furthermore, through diplomatic relations and friendly support, Cuba will be more willing to participate in the international system, as well as directly with the United States, as an ally. As the United States, along with the international community as a whole, helps and supports Cuba’s economic growth, Cuban society will eventually push for greater protection of human rights.

Lifting travel restrictions is key to more human rightsSullivan 3/29 --- Mark P. Sullivan, Specialist in Latin American Affairs for the Congressional Research Office (“Cuba: U.S. Policy and Issues for the 113th Congress”,

March 29, 2013, FAS, http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R43024.pdf, accessed July 3, 2013, MY)A U.S. State Department spokesman said that it welcomes any changes that would allow Cubans to depart from and return to their country freely. According to the State Department, Cuba’s announced change is consistent with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in that everyone should have the rights to leave any country, including their own, and return.86 At the same time, however, Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roberta Jacobson cautioned that it is uncertain yet how the changes are to be implemented. She raised questions regarding whether Cuba would impose some controls on passports and whether everyone would be free to travel.87 As noted above, Internet blogger Yoani Sanchez, who had been denied an exit permit for several years, received a new passport under the new policy and in February 2013 began a multi-nation trip that brought her to the United States in mid-March 2013. A number of dissidents, however, including those political prisoners who have been released on parole, have been restricted from traveling abroad. In light of Cuba’s new travel policy, some analysts have raised the question as to whether the United States should review its policy toward Cuban migrants, as set forth in the Cuban Adjustment Act of 1966 (P.L. 89-732), in which those Cubans arriving in the United States are allowed to apply for permanent resident status in one year.88

US trade restrictions are halting political and economic revolution – HelmsBurtan feeds Cuban fascism and repression Bilbao 13 Tomas Bilbao(Executive Director of the Cuba Study Group. Prior to joining the CSG, Mr. Bilbao served as Director of Transition for Senator-elect Mel Martinez and Director of Operations for Mel Martinez for U.S. Senate),“Restoring Executive Authority Over U.S. Policy Toward Cuba”,cubastudrygroup.org,2/13,http://www.cubastudygroup.org/index.cfm/files/serve?File_id=7f2193cf-d2ef-45c8-91de-0b1f88d30059 Helms-Burton has failed to advance the cause of freedom and prosperity for the Cuban people. This is not surprising, ¶ since never in modern history has there been a democratic transition in a country under a unilateral sanctions

framework as broad and severe as the one codified in Helms-Burton. Its blanket sanctions lack ethical or moral consideration since they indiscriminately impact all levels of Cuban society, from senior Cuban officials to democracy advocates ¶ and private entrepreneurs. While it is no secret that Cuban government policies are primarily to blame for the Island’s economic crisis, their impact has only been exacerbated and made disproportionately greater among the most vulnerable segments of the population by the blanket sanctions codified under Helms-Burton. In addition, these sanctions deny Cuba access to the international financial institutions it would need to implement the type of macroeconomic reforms that U.S. policy has sought for more than 50 years.¶ Helms-Burton preconditions the lifting of its blanket sanctions on sweeping political change in Cuba. In practice, this “waiting game” has strengthened the relative power of the Cuban government vis-à-vis the Cuban people while simultaneously giving the former a convenient scapegoat for its oppressive practices and economic blunders. ¶ Cuban blogger and democracy

advocate Yoani Sanchez best illustrated the impact of the “waiting game” enabled by ¶ Helms-Burton when she wrote: “The five decade prolongation of the ‘blockade’ [as the embargo is referred to in Cuba] has allowed every setback we’ve suffered to be explained as stemming from it, justified by its effects...To make matters worse, the economic fence has helped to fuel the idea of a place besieged, where dissent comes to be equated with an act of treason. The exterior blockade has strengthened the interior blockade.”ix¶ Former political prisoner and independent economist Oscar Espinosa Chepe agrees, writing that Helms-Burton’s blanket sanctions have only served “…to give the Cuban government an alibi to declare Cuba a fortress under siege, to ¶ justify repression and to (pass) the blame for the economic disaster in Cuba.”x¶

Conditioning our policy of resource denial on sweeping political reforms strengthens the Cuban state because the ¶

scarce resources available in an authoritarian Cuba have been and will continue to be allocated primarily based on political priorities, thereby increasing the state’s relative power and its ability to control its citizens . History has ¶ shown that the negative effects of such isolation can be long lasting and counterproductive to change. During the ¶ Cold War, U.S. policy toward Eastern Europe was not based on isolation or resource denial. Indeed, an analysis of ¶ these transitions reveals an extraordinary correlation between the degree of openness toward former communist ¶ countries and the success of their transitions to democracies and market economies.xi¶ In recent years, ongoing political and economic reforms in Burma suggest that U.S. policy toward this Asian country ¶ could offer a viable model for the United States to follow in its policy approach toward Cuba. Since their enactment ¶ in 1990, Burma sanctions have allowed for unrestricted travel by U.S. citizens and travel-related financial services.xii¶ Burma sanctions have also allowed for the export of most U.S. goods and services and offer broad discretion to the ¶ President on which Burmese products it allows to be imported into the United States. The broad political reforms taking place in Burma today offer a sharp contrast to the narrow reforms that have taken place in Cuba during the ¶ same period and underscore the ineffectiveness of blanket unilateral sanctions.

Human rights - Poverty Impact

Embargo promotes poverty in Cuba – gives Castro more powerHenderson 08 – David Henderson, research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and is also associate professor of economics at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California (“End the Cuban Embargo”, AntiWar, 2/21/08, http://antiwar.com/henderson/?articleid=12395, accessed: 7/4/13, ckr)Which brings us to the second argument for the embargo, which seems to go as follows.By squeezing the Cuban economy enough, the U.S. government can make Cubans even poorer than Fidel Castro has managed to over the past 48 years, through his imposition of Stalin-style socialism. Ultimately, the theory goes, some desperate Cubans will rise up and overthrow Castro.There are at least three problems with this "make the victims hurt more" strategy. First, it's profoundly immoral. It could succeed only by making average Cubans – already living in grinding poverty – even poorer. Most of them are completely innocent and, indeed, many of them already want to get rid of Castro. And consider the irony: A defining feature of socialism is the prohibition of voluntary exchange between people. Pro-embargo Americans typically want to get rid of socialism in Cuba . Yet their solution – prohibiting trade with Americans – is the very essence of socialism .The second problem is more practical: It hasn't worked. To be effective, an embargo must prevent people in the target country from getting goods, or at least substantially increase the cost of getting goods. But competition is a hardy weed that shrugs off governmental attempts to suppress it. Companies in many countries, especially Canada, produce and sell goods that are close substitutes for the U.S. goods that can't be sold to Cuba. Wander around Cuba, and you're likely to see beach umbrellas advertising Labatt's beer, McCain's (no relation) French fries, and President's Choice cola. Moreover, even U.S. goods for which there are no close substitutes are often sold to buyers in other countries, who then resell to Cuba. A layer of otherwise unnecessary middlemen is added, pushing up prices somewhat, but the price increase is probably small for most goods.Some observers have argued that the very fact that the embargo does little harm means that it should be kept because it's a cheap way for U.S. politicians to express moral outrage against Castro. But arguing for a policy on the grounds that it's ineffective should make people question the policy's wisdom.Third, the policy is politically effective, but not in the way the embargo's proponents would wish. The embargo surely makes Cubans somewhat more anti-American than they would be otherwise , and it makes them somewhat more in favor of – or at least less against – Castro . C astro has never talked honestly about the embarg o: he has always called it a blockade, which it manifestly is not. But he has gotten political mileage by blaming the embargo, rather than socialism, for Cuba's awful economic plight and reminds his subjects ceaselessly that the U.S. government is the instigator . Some Cubans probably believe him.

Embargo increases poverty in Cuba

Trani 6/23 – Eugene Trani,  University Distinguished Professor at Virginia Commonwealth University (“End the embargo on Cuba”, Times Dispatch, 6/23/13, http://www.timesdispatch.com/opinion/their-opinion/columnists-blogs/guest-columnists/end-the-embargo-on-cuba/article_ba3e522f-8861-5f3c-bee9-000dffff8ce7.html, accessed: 7/4/13, ckr)

My own trip to Cuba reinforced the call for such actions. We spent four days visiting with many different kinds of groups in Havana, community projects, senior citizens, a health clinic, youth programs, artist and recording facilities, musical ensembles, historic sites such as Revolution Square and the Ernest

Hemingway house and an environmental training facility, and not once did we hear anger toward the United States or the American people.What we heard was puzzlement about the embargo and strong feelings that it was hurting the people of Cuba. In fact, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the absolute poverty rate has increased significantly in Cuba. It was also evident that there is visible decline in major infrastructure areas such as housing.Today, there seem to be both humanitarian and economic factors, particularly with the significant growth of the non-governmental section of the economy that could factor in a change in American policy. There is also a major diplomatic factor in that no other major country, including our allies, follows our policy.What a positive statement for American foreign policy in Latin America and throughout the world it would be for the United States to end its embargo and establish normal diplomatic relations with Cuba. We would be taking both a humanitarian course of action and making a smart diplomatic gesture. The time is right and all our policy makers need is courage to bring about this change.

Embargo toll high – affects Cuban citizens and US tradeBrown 3/16 – Jamila Brown, Social entrepreneur, political commentator, and freelance writer skilled in international relations as it relates to human rights, development, community empowerment, corporate social responsibility, and government accountability. Specializes in congressional lobbying, grant and proposal writing and development, translation services, conflict mediation, public relations, international trade and development, risk assessment analysis, and corporate social responsibility. (“El Momento Es Ahora – End The Cuban Embargo”, The Village, April 16, 2013, http://www.cbcfinc.org/thevillage/?p=297, accessed: 7/4/13, LR)Even Cubans in opposition to the communist government, among them dissident blogger Yoani Sanchez, support an end to the U.S. embargo against Cuba saying the embargo is “anti-Cuban and not anti-Castro.”When I traveled to Cuba in 2010 with the US Women and Cuba Collaboration to meet with Afro-Cuban women to discuss gender and racial equality, signs of the embargo were evident even before arriving at our destination. Cuban-American families brought with them an abundance of “gifts” for their relatives mainly clothing and household items many of us take for granted. On the island itself universal healthcare is juxtaposed by the lack of access to high-quality medical equipment and medicines (most of which carry U.S. patents and therefore are prohibited) and the benefit of free education comes at a cost of limited school supplies.American policy is not only aberrant in comparison to the rest of the world that regularly trades with Cuba, but it highlights the stark contradictions in U.S. foreign policy.As Jay-Z rhymed, the United States has normalized, albeit at times contentious, relations with communist China. Moreover, its vow to penalize Cuba for its humanitarian record brings into question its relationship with other noted oppressive regimes such as Saudi Arabia and Bahrain whom the American government counts as close allies.After five decades the US-Cuban embargo has only succeeded in pushing residents of the island deeper into poverty and with American economic constraints unable to sway Cuban political will, it is time for a new approach to Cuba. While visiting a school in Matanzas, Cuba that trains students to become art, music, and dance teachers in efforts to preserve Cuban culture, I was struck by the talent of this singer and composer who performed his song “El Momento Es Ahora” (The Moment Is Now). Indeed it is.

Poverty causes nuclear war.Caldwell 2000 - Joseph George Caldwell, PhD (Statistics) Consultant in Statistics and Information Technology (“On Human Population, Global Nuclear War and the Survival

of Planet Earth,” Foundation Website 10/26/00, http://www.foundationwebsite.org/arti1000.htm Accessed 7/10/13 AT)It would appear that global nuclear war will happen very soon, for two main reasons , alluded to above. First, human poverty and misery are increasing at an incredible rate. There are now three billion more desperately poor people on the planet than there were just forty years ago. Despite decades of industrial development, the number of wretchedly poor people continues to soar. The pressure for war mounts as the

population explodes. Second, war is motivated by resource scarcity -- the desire of one group to acquire the land, water, energy, or other resources possessed by another. With each passing year, crowding and misery increase, raising the motivation for war to higher levels.

Poverty kills millions and outweighs nuclear warAbu-Jamal 98 – Mumia Abu-Jamal, prominent social activist and author, quotes James Gilligan, American psychiatrist and author, director of mental health for the Massachusetts prison system, President of the International Association for Forensic Psychotherapy. (“A Quiet and Deadly Violence,” Al-Ahram Online Sept 19 1998, http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/1998/400/in5.htm Accessed 7/10/13 AT)

We live, equally immersed, and to a deeper degree, in a nation that condones and ignores wide-ranging " structural' violence , of a kind that destroys human life with a breathtaking ruthlessness. Former Massachusetts prison official and writer, Dr. James Gilligan observes; By "structural violence" I mean the increased rates of death and disability suffered by those who occupy [at] the bottom rungs of society, as contrasted by those who are above them. Those excess deaths (or at least a demonstrably large proportion of them) are a function of the class structure; and that structure is itself a product of society's collective human choices, concerning how to distribute the collective wealth of the society. These are not acts of God. I am contrasting "structural" with "behavioral violence" by which I mean the non-natural deaths and injuries that are caused by specific behavioral actions of individuals against individuals, such as the deaths we attribute to homicide, suicide, soldiers in warfare,

capital punishment, and so on. --(Gilligan, J., MD, Violence: Reflections On a National Epidemic (New York: Vintage, 1996), 192.) This form of violence , not

covered by any of the majoritarian, corporate, ruling-class protected media, is invisible to us and because of its invisibility, all the more insidious. How dangerous is it--really? Gilligan notes: [E]very fifteen years, on the average, as many people die because of relative poverty as would be killed in a nuclear war that caused 232

million deaths; and every single year, two to three times as many people die from poverty throughout the world as were killed by the Nazi genocide of the Jews over a six-year period. This is , in effect, the equivalent of an ongoing , unending, in fact accelerating, thermo nuclear war , or genocide on the weak and poor every year of every decade, throughout the world.

Human rights - Trade Solves

Privatization creates competitive labor markets – that solves government exploitation Seiglie 01 Carlos Seiglie - Associate Professor of Economics at Rutgers University,(“Cuba’s Road to Serfdom”,cato.org,winter/2001,http://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/cato-journal/2001/1/cj20n3-6.pdf,Accessed:7/3/13,JW)

Creating a free labor market in Cuba would benefit Cuban workers by increasing their real wages and

increasing the number of jobs . The net gain to society from this change in policy would be quite large. As the government permited workers to deal directly with foreign firms,¶ the equilibrium wage and the level of employment would rise, which¶ would increase production. The net gain to society is measured by the¶ difference between this increase in output and the opportunity cost of¶ the incremental workers hired (see Harberger 1971). Stated differently, the Cuban government’s current policy of not permitting Cuban workers to deal directly with foreign firms imposes a deadweight loss on society .¶ The size of the deadweight loss can be estimated as follows. Suppose that the average monthly wage received by the Cuban government per worker employed in joint ventures is $500.00 as reported. At the current exchange rate, the average Cuban worker receives¶ approximately $14.00 a month of this from the state. The most conservative estimate is that 75,000 workers are employed in joint enterprises. Furthermore, suppose the uncompensated wage elasticity of hours worked (elasticity of labor supply) is 0.5. Then, assuming the supply and demand for labor are linear, the loss in production is $16 million dollars a month or $192 million dollars a year below where it would be if the government permitted a competitive labor market to exist that resulted in Cuban wages rising to $50 a month or to a $600 annual salary. The deadweight loss to society is $170 million dollars a¶ year.¶ If competitive labor market conditions raised average Cuban wages¶ to $100 a month or to a $1,200 annual salary, the estimates for the loss in production from failing to enact this policy rises to $27.5 million a month or $331 million dollars annually . This amount is twice the annual amount invested in Cuba by foreigners over the last decade. ¶ The social welfare losses from continuing the current policy would be $268 million dollars annually. These estimates rise dramatically if we¶ assume that the wage elasticity of hours worked is higher than 0.5. It¶ is clear that Cuba is paying a high price for regressing to serfdom.¶ Yet, as large as this cost may be, it is only a fraction of the total cost¶ that the government’s policy imposes on society. The reason is that for the state to remain a monopsonist in the labor market and, therefore,¶ to continue to extract the rents granted by having this privileged¶ position, it has been essential for the state to deny Cubans the right to freedom of contract in the labor market and the right to own private property. If the government enacted the economically sound policy of massive privatization, labor markets would become competitive. The government’s monopsony power would break down since¶ each worker would have the option of either working at the government’s lower wage—seeking individually or collectively to buy out¶ some state-owned firm and become the recipient of the residual¶ income—or instead work for some other domestic private firm that¶ offers them higher compensation, possibly in the form of an equity¶ stake in the enterprise. The power of the Cuban government to exploit the workers would therefore be eliminated . Finally, it should be¶ pointed out that since the current policy reduces the level of employment, the marginal productivity of capital and return to capital (net of¶ risk) is currently lower in Cuba than it would be if the Castro government initiated the appropriate reforms.¶ Cuba cannot develop economically if it continues to permit only foreigners, and not its citizens, to own private property. Granting workers the right to own property will result in an increase in saving and development of the capital markets . Equally, reforming the capital markets so that all Cubans may borrow and lend will lead to the development of small businesses which are so essential in achieving a high level of development.

Empirics prove- trade helps human rightsFarrell 09- Chris Farrell, graduate of Stanford and the London School of Economics and economics editor of Marketplace Money, (“Benefits of lifting the Cuban embargo,” 4/16/09, https://www.marketplace.org/topics/world/benefits-lifting-cuban-embargo, 7/3/13, CAS)

Farrell: I think the real lesson that you take from this is that trade is revolutionary, commerce is revolutionary. And trade is not just money and entrepreneurial opportunities. It also means exposing an economy to different ideas, and ideas that are an anathema to a bureaucracy that is in power. And we have a very good counter-example. Remember in the 1990's, the Clinton administration came under a lot of pressure to set up trade embargoes with China because a lot of the human rights violations. And I'm not minimizing, by the way -- I am not minimizing human rights violations in China, I am not minimizing human rights violations in Cuba. But the administration continued the trade with China, and it was the right move -- China is now more integrated into the global economy, there's a lot more information in that economy, it's moving in the right direction. And so that's what I want to see trade with Cuba. I think that's the real lesson to take here.

Human rights - Turns Foreign Policy

US International Human Rights policy key to success of foreign policyMoravcsik 02-- Andrew Moravcsik, Professor of Politics and director of the European Union Program at Princeton University (“Why Is U.S. Human Rights Policy So Unilateralist?” in “Multilateralism and U.S. Foreign Policy: Ambivalent Engagement” edited by Stewart Patrick and Shepard Forman, Lynne Rienner Publishers, http://books.google.com/books?id=z_w3DkdSdhsC&pg=PA345&lpg=PA345&dq=Why+Is+U.S.+Human+Rights+Policy+So+Unilateralist?+Andrew+Moravcsik&source=bl&ots=sgoPuAs4XW&sig=mIsfmf9uJ0E_FS346bhWUr14PUo&hl=en&sa=X&ei=dm3dUZiJA8fe4AONk4CIAQ&ved=0CEcQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=Why%20Is%20U.S.%20Human%20Rights%20Policy%20So%20Unilateralist%3F%20Andrew%20Moravcsik&f=false, Print, accessed 7/10/13, jtc) One common argument for multilateral commitments is that human rights ¶ ideology is required to legitimate U.S. foreign policy, in particular, U.S. in- ¶ ternational human rights policy. The idea underlying such arguments is that ¶ full adherence to multilateral treaties is in “the national interest.“59 ¶

The international promotion of human rights, we often read, expresses ¶ core U.S. values; indeed, public opinion demands it.60 This tendency is in- ¶ dependent of partisan attachment. Patrick Anderson, Carter’s chief speech- ¶ writer during the 1976 campaign, observed that “liberals liked human rights ¶ because it involved political freedom and getting liberals out of jail in dic- ¶ tatorships, and conservatives liked it because it involved criticisms of Rus- ¶ sia.“al Hence advocates of a human rights policy, liberal and conservative, ¶ tend to agree, in the words of Jeanne Kirkpatrick (a trenchant critic of ¶ Jimmy Carter’s human rights policy), not only that “human rights [should] ¶ play a central role in U.S. foreign policy,” but also that “no U.S. foreign ¶ policy can possibly succeed that does not accord them a central role.“62 The ¶

Reagan administration, which began with outright opposition to any human ¶ rights policy, except that aimed at the Soviet Union, ended up adopting ¶ many human rights policies and exploiting human rights rhetoric.63

Human rights - Turns Democracy

International Human rights enforcement strengthens democracyMoravcsik 02-- Andrew Moravcsik, Professor of Politics and director of the European Union Program at Princeton University (“Why Is U.S. Human Rights Policy So Unilateralist?” in “Multilateralism and U.S. Foreign Policy: Ambivalent Engagement” edited by Stewart Patrick and Shepard Forman, Lynne Rienner Publishers, http://books.google.com/books?id=z_w3DkdSdhsC&pg=PA345&lpg=PA345&dq=Why+Is+U.S.+Human+Rights+Policy+So+Unilateralist?+Andrew+Moravcsik&source=bl&ots=sgoPuAs4XW&sig=mIsfmf9uJ0E_FS346bhWUr14PUo&hl=en&sa=X&ei=dm3dUZiJA8fe4AONk4CIAQ&ved=0CEcQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=Why%20Is%20U.S.%20Human%20Rights%20Policy%20So%20Unilateralist%3F%20Andrew%20Moravcsik&f=false, Print, accessed 7/10/13, jtc)A second factor contributing to U.S. ambivalence toward multilateral ¶ human rights commitments is the exceptional stability of democratic governance inside its borders. ¶ This assertion may seem puzzling at first glance. It is widely believed ¶ that well-established democracies are the strongest supporters of inter- ¶

national human rights enforcement. Most interpretations of international ¶ human rights regimes stress the spread of democratic ideas outward from ¶ liberal societies through the actions of NGOs and public opinion, as well as ¶ the direct exercise of state power by established democracies.ts In the broad ¶ sweep of history, to be sure, enforcement of human rights is closely linked ¶ to the spread of liberal democracy. Publics and politicians in established ¶ democracies have long encouraged and assisted democracy abroad, and ¶ even fought bitter wars to uphold that very institution, both for idealistic ¶ reasons and because they tend to view democracy-correctly so, it now ap- ¶ pears-as integrally linked to world peace.17 ¶ Yet the relationship between stable democratic governance and intemational human rights regimes is more ambivalent than this simple account sug- ¶ gests. Established democracies are often skeptical of effective enforcement of ¶ Why Is U.S. Human Rights Policy So Unilateralist? 351 ¶ international human rights norms. This underlying ambivalence, I have ¶ argued elsewhere, was particularly evident at the founding moment of the ¶ major postwar international human rights regimes under the European Con- ¶ vention on Human Rights, the American Convention on Human Rights, and ¶ the UN system. In each case, the most stable and established democracies ¶ consistently opposed effective enforcement of international norms, a posi- ¶ tion that led them into alliances with their most repressive neighbors.

Human rights - Spreads US Interests

US Human Rights leadership spreads US interestsGriffey 11 – Brian Griffey, human rights researcher and communications specialist, who has worked for the United Nations, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International USA and as an investigative journalist [“U.S. leadership on human rights essential to strengthen democracy abroad,” The Hill, 3/18/11, http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/foreign-policy/150667-us-leadership-on-human-rights-essential-to-strengthen-democracy-abroad, accessed: 7/10/13, JK]

Nonetheless, U.S. leadership on human rights offers clear opportunities to advance not only international peace and security – a fundamental purpose of the U.N. – but also conjoined US political and economic interests at home and abroad. The U.S. is presently demonstrating exactly how crucial such involvement is as an elected member of the Human Rights Council, participating in vital negotiations on how best to mitigate widespread abuses responding to ongoing unrest in the Middle East and North Africa, including by strategic US allies in global security and trade. As Secretary Clinton expressed en route to Geneva to participate in recent

talks on human rights violations in Libya, joining the Council has “proven to be a good decision, because we’ve been able to influence a number of actions that we otherwise would have been on the outside looking in .” In its first submission to the body, the U.S. likewise recognized that participation in the Council’s peer-review system allows the U.S. not only to lead by example and

“encourage others to strengthen their commitments to human rights,” but also to address domestic human rights shortcomings. By leading international discourse on human rights, the U.S. will be in a better position both to advance observation of human rights abroad, and to take on new treaty commitments that demonstrate adherence of our own system to the vaulting principles we identify with our democracy. While the U.S. is party to more than 12,000 treaties, it has dodged most human rights treaties drafted since World War II through the U.N., and has ratified only a dozen. Upon transmission of four core human rights treaties to the Senate in 1978, President Carter observed: “Our failure to become a party increasingly reflects upon our attainments, and prejudices United States participation in the development of the international law of human rights.” The Senate ratified two of those treaties 15 years later. The others continue to languish in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, still awaiting ratification after 32 years. It likewise took the Senate almost 40 years to approve a treaty punishing genocide, after signing it in 1948 following the Holocaust. Other human rights treaties U.S. presidents have signed – but the Senate has yet to agree to – include U.N. conventions protecting the rights of women, children, and persons with disabilities. The U.S. is the only nation in the world that hasn’t ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child, with the

exception of war-torn Somalia, which lacks a functioning government and control over much of its territory. As we watch the contours and nature of power being reshaped in the Middle East and North Africa, the U.S. must have a singular message on human rights – both at home and abroad: Human rights go hand-in-hand with a healthy democracy, and demand a concerted and collective effort to be upheld, especially in times of crisis. Greater U.S. participation in U.N. human rights treaties would ensure that the country has not only a seat at the table, but also an authoritative voice on matters vital to advancing democracy abroad, and our national security. A welcome consequence would be a more

prominent place for the human rights lens in our vision of U.S. democracy – and perhaps a stronger resolve to ameliorate the plights of those least well off in our own society.

HUMAN RIGHTS ADVANTAGE

HUMAN RIGHTS ADV.

The embargo undermines human rights in 2 waysAmnesty International ‘9, THE US EMBARGO AGAINST CUBA: ITS IMPACT ON ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL RIGHTS, http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/AMR25/007/2009/en/51469f8b-73f8-47a2-a5bd-f839adf50488/ amr250072009eng.pdf, ACC. 6-1-2013, JT//JEDIFor the past 14 years, the UN Secretary-General has documented the negative impact of the US embargo on Cuba. In her last report to the Human Rights Council, the Personal Representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on the situation of human rights in Cuba described the effects of the embargo on the economic, social and cultural rights of the Cuban people as “disastrous”.33“The adverse consequences of economic sanctions on the enjoyment of human rights”, a study prepared by Marc Bossuyt for the Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, concluded that the US embargo violates human rights law in two distinct ways. Firstly, “the fact that the U nited States is the major regional economic power and the main source of new medicines and technologies means that Cuba is subject to deprivations that impinge on its citizens’ human rights.” Secondly, by passing legislation that “tries to force third-party countries into embargoing Cuba as well” – the 1992 Torricelli Act – the US government attempted to turn “a unilateral embargo into a multilateral embargo through coercive measures, the only effect of which will be to deepen further the suffering of the Cuban people and increase the violation of their human rights” . 34

The plan’s economic engagement removes the primary impediments to reform and advances human rightsCuba Study Group, Feb. ’13, “Restoring Executive Authority Over U.S. Policy Toward Cuba,” accessed 6-24-2013, http://www.cubastudygroup.org/index.cfm/files/serve?File_id=45d8f827-174c-4d43-aa2f-ef7794831032, JT//JEDIEconomic engagementA nation with a weak and inefficient economy can hardly be considered sovereign. Similarly, a society where individuals lack the ability to create wealth cannot be considered a free one. Economic rights are a fundamental component of human rights. Economic resources are also a necessary prerequisite to the development of a civil society, as there cannot exist a civil society without economic resources. Thus we believe that reforms in Cuba’s system that result in greater economic wellbeing and increased economic independence for Cubans are fundamental elements of their inherent freedoms, and should be encouraged and supported.We believe in the constructive power of markets to effectively allocate resources, create jobs and reduce poverty. Markets flourish when individuals can unleash their creative potential in a society. However, while we believe that for those societal problems that have a market solution, markets provide the best solutions, we also recognize that markets do not provide solutions for every problem or challenge that a society faces. We also believe that markets should not function in a manner devoid of societal values, such as ethics, compassion and solidarity.Naturally, we regret the slow and tortuous pace of Cuba’s economic reforms, and believe that their impact on improving Cuba’s economy will be severely curtailed by their slow pace and timid nature. While history has largely discredited shock-therapy economic reforms, it has likewise proven the ineffectiveness of trickle-down

timid and inadequate reforms. Increasing the pace, breadth and depth of economic reforms is necessary to avert the worsening of an already-ailing economy.Thus, we believe that in order to truly implement the warranted changes in Cuba’s economy, more forceful, decisive and substantive changes need to be made by Cuba’s government. However, we also believe that needed macroeconomic changes require external conditions, such as access to international monetary institutions, which are not currently permitted by U.S. sanctions, even though they impose stringent requirements and reforms on borrowers. Ironically, such sanctions, originally intended to cause Cuba to change, are now becoming its major impediment to change.

HUMAN RIGHTS ADV.

A strong commitment to human rights leadership in US foreign policy is key to prevent extinctionRhonda Copelon ‘99, Prof. of Law and Dir. of the International Women's Human Rights Law Clinic (IWHR) at the City University of New York School of Law, “The Indivisible Framework of International Human Rights: A Source of Social Justice in the U.S.,” New York City Law Review, 3 N.Y. City L. Rev. 59, JEDIThe indivisible human rights framework survived the Cold War despite U.S. machinations to truncate it in the international arena. The

framework is there to shatter the myth of the superiority of the U.S. version of rights, to rebuild popular expectations, and to help develop a culture and jurisprudence of indivisible human rights. Indeed, in the face of systemic inequality and crushing poverty, violence by official and private actors, globalization of the market economy, and military and environmental depredation , the human rights framework is gaining new force and new dimensions. It is being broadened today by the movements of people in different parts of the world, particularly in the Southern Hemisphere and significantly of women, who understand the protection of human rights as a matter of individual and collective human survival and betterment. Also emerging is a notion of third-generation rights, encompassing collective rights that cannot be solved on a state-by-state basis and that call for new mechanisms of accountability, particularly affecting Northern countries. The emerging rights include human-centered sustainable development, environmental protection, peace, and security. n38 Given the poverty and inequality in the United States as well as our role in the world, it is imperative that we bring the human rights framework to bear on both domestic and foreign policy.

HUMAN RIGHTS ADV.—SOLVENCY/INTERNALS Repealing Helms-Burton uniquely advances U.S. influence on multilateral engagement to improve human rightsCuba Study Group, Feb. ’13, “Restoring Executive Authority Over U.S. Policy Toward Cuba,” accessed 6-24-2013, http://www.cubastudygroup.org/index.cfm/files/serve?File_id=45d8f827-174c-4d43-aa2f-ef7794831032, JT//JEDIInstead of isolating Cuba, the result of Helms-Burton has been to isolate the United States in its policy approach and undermine its ability to lead international policy toward Cuba now and potentially in the future. As a result of the global notoriety of Helms-Burton, it is highly unlikely that there would be any consensus for a U.S.-led multilateral approach toward Cuba within the United Nations Security Council or the European Union. It is equally unlikely that there would be support for sanctions against Cuba in Latin America in light of recent initiatives by the Organization of American States to readmit Cuba. In the meantime, Cuba has been pivoting away from its economic dependence on one country (Venezuela) and expanding its trade and development ties with nations throughout Europe, Asia, Africa and the Western Hemisphere . Indeed, the prospects of garnering international support for a multilateral approach while Helms-Burton remains the law of the land are tenuous at best. On the other hand, repealing Helms-Burton would uniquely position the U nited States to persuade allies to focus their engagement with the Island on helping the Cuban people, and pressing for the respect of human rights.

Repealing extraterritorial sanctions advances human rights and multilateral solutionsCuba Study Group, Feb. ’13, “Restoring Executive Authority Over U.S. Policy Toward Cuba,” accessed 6-24-2013, http://www.cubastudygroup.org/index.cfm/files/serve?File_id=45d8f827-174c-4d43-aa2f-ef7794831032, JT//JEDIRepealing the extraterritorial provisions of Helms-Burton would allow the United States greater leverage in persuading the international community , especially key regional partners, to adopt a multilateral and targeted approach toward focusing on the advancement of human rights in Cuba. This would fundamentally transform the international dynamic that has long helped the Cuban government stifle dissent, since its efforts to isolate critics at home would increasingly lead to its own isolation from the international community.

Maintaining the embargo guarantees Cuban human rights violationsDoug Bandow, senior fellow at the Cato Institute and a former special assistant to former US president Ronald Reagan, Dec.

11, ’12, “Time to End the Cuba Embargo,” National Interest (Online), http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/time-end-cuba-embargo, ACC. 5-26-2013, JT//JEDI The regime remains a humanitarian travesty, of course. Nor are Cubans the only victims: three years ago the regime jailed a State Department contractor for distributing satellite telephone equipment in Cuba. But Havana is not the only regime to violate human rights. Moreover, experience has long demonstrated that it is virtually impossible for outsiders to force democracy. Washington often has used sanctions and the Office of Foreign Assets Control currently is enforcing around 20 such programs, mostly to little effect.The policy in Cuba obviously has failed. The regime remains in power . Indeed, it has consistently used the embargo to justify its own mismanagement, blaming poverty on America . Observed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: “It is my personal belief that the Castros do not want to see an end to the embargo and do not want to see normalization with the United States, because they would lose all of their

excuses for what hasn’t happened in Cuba in the last 50 years.” Similarly, Cuban exile Carlos Saladrigas of the Cuba Study Group argued that keeping the “embargo , maintaining this hostility, all it does is strengthen and embolden the hardliners.”Cuban human rights activists also generally oppose sanctions. A decade ago I (legally) visited Havana, where I met Elizardo Sanchez Santa Cruz, who suffered in communist prisons for eight years. He told me that the “sanctions policy gives the government a good alibi to justify the failure of the totalitarian model in Cuba.”

HUMAN RIGHTS ADV.—SOLVENCY/INTERNALS

Failure to lift the embargo guarantees these rights violations will continue. Lifting the embargo offers the only path towards improving human rights in Cuba and real political and economic reform. Bandow, December 11, 2012 [ Senior fellow at the Cato Institute and a former special assistant to former US president Ronald Reagan, “Time to End the Cuban Embargo”, http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/time-end-cuba-embargo] accessed 7/12/13 //sb

The policy in Cuba obviously has failed. The regime remains in power. Indeed, it has consistently used the embargo to justify its own mismanagement, blaming poverty on America. Observed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: “It is my personal belief that the Castros do not want to see an end to the embargo and do not want to see normalization with the United States, because they would lose all of their excuses for what hasn’t happened in Cuba in the last 50 years.” Similarly, Cuban exile Carlos Saladrigas of the Cuba Study Group argued that keeping the “embargo, maintaining this hostility, all it does is strengthen and embolden the hardliners.” ¶ Cuban human rights activists also generally oppose sanctions . A decade ago I (legally) visited Havana, where I met Elizardo Sanchez Santa Cruz, who suffered in communist prisons for eight years. He told me that the “sanctions policy gives the government a good alibi to justify the failure of the totalitarian model in Cuba.” ¶ Indeed, it is only by posing as an opponent of Yanqui Imperialism that Fidel Castro has achieved an international reputation. If he had been ignored by Washington, he never would have been anything other than an obscure authoritarian windbag.

The embargo constitutes a fundamental violation of international law and human rights American Association for World Health Report Summary of Findings, March 1997. ("Denial of Food and Medicine: The Impact Of The U.S. Embargo On The Health And Nutrition In Cuba," http://www.cubasolidarity.net/aawh.html) accessed 7/12/13 //sb

Finally, the AAWH wishes to emphasize the stringent nature of the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba. Few other embargoes in recent history - including those targeting Iran, Libya, South Africa, Southern Rhodesia, Chile or Iraq - have included an outright ban on the sale of food. Few other embargoes have so restricted medical commerce as to deny the availability of life-saving medicines to ordinary citizens. Such an embargo appears to violate the most basic international charters and conventions governing human rights, including the United Nations charter, the charter of the Organization of American States, and the articles of the Geneva Convention governing the treatment of civilians during wartime.

HUMAN RIGHTS ADV.—SOLVENCY/INTERNALS

The Cuban embargo violates basic human rightsUnited Nations, 2011 “Sixty-sixth General Assembly” September 13, 2011 // sbhttp://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2011/ga11162.doc.htmWANG MIN ( China) said that for 19 years, the Assembly had adopted, by an overwhelming majority, resolutions on the need to end the Cuban embargo, urging all countries to abide by the Charter and international law, and to repeal measures with extraterritorial effect. Regrettably, those texts had not been implemented and the Cuban embargo had yet to be lifted, which severely violated the Charter and inflicted enormous economic and financial loss on Cuba. The embargo had impeded efforts to eradicate poverty and violated Cubans’ basic human rights to food, health and education.¶ China had always believed that countries should develop mutual relations on the basis of upholding the Charter and respecting the right of others to choose their development paths, he said, adding that China opposed unilateral sanctions imposed by military, political, economic or other means. Noting that China and Cuba had maintained “normal” economic, trade and personal exchanges, he said such mutually beneficial cooperation continued to grow. Dialogue and harmonious coexistence were the mainstream of international relations, and in that context, he hoped the United States would follow the tenets of the Charter and end its embargo as soon as possible. He also hoped the relationship between the United States and Cuba would improve with a view to promoting regional development. China would support today’s resolution.

The embargo infringes on human rights and therefore is illegalThe representative of United Nations, 2011 “Sixty-sixth General Assembly” September 13, 2011 // sbhttp://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2011/ga11162.doc.htmIran said that the overwhelming support for the resolution reflected the common understanding and will of the international community concerning the “inhumane and illegitimate” embargo imposed by the United States against the Cuban Government and people. Depriving civilian populations of their economic and social rights infringed upon their basic human rights and was therefore illegal. Indeed, this was the main feature of the sanctions as known today. Such measures were illegal largely because economic sanctions were a tool to impose hegemonic intentions of big powers; sanctions always ended in targeting daily lives of civilians; sanctions had proven to be futile and there was no strong proof that independent nations compromised their revered national interests to hegemonic powers due to sanctions.

HUMAN RIGHTS ADV.—IMPACT EXT.

Human Rights are an absolute good – must act to protect them in all instancesHuman Rights Watch 97 [An Introduction to the Human Rights Movement, http://www.hrweb.org/intro.html]

Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of [hu]mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people,Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law...These are the second and third paragraphs of the preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 10, 1948 without a dissenting vote. It is the first multinational declaration mentioning human rights by name, and the human rights movement has largely adopted it as a charter. I'm quoting them here because it states as well or better than anything I've read what human rights are and why they are important.The United Nations Charter, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and UN Human Rights convenants were written and implemented in the aftermath of the Holocaust, revelations coming from the Nuremberg war crimes trials, the Bataan Death March, the atomic bomb, and other horrors smaller in magnitude but not in impact on the individuals they affected. A whole lot of people in a number of countries had a crisis of conscience and found they could no longer look the other way while tyrants jailed, tortured, and killed their neighbors.In Germany, the Nazis first came for the communists, and I did not speak up, because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak up, because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak up, because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I did not speak up, because I was not a Catholic. Then they came for me... and by that time, there was no one to speak up for anyone.-- Martin Niemoeller, Pastor,German Evangelical (Lutheran) ChurchMany also realized that advances in technology and changes in social structures had rendered war a threat to the continued existence of the human race. Large numbers of people in many countries lived under the control of tyrants, having no recourse but war to relieve often intolerable living conditions. Unless some way was found to relieve the lot of these people, they could revolt and become the catalyst for another wide-scale and possibly nuclear war . For perhaps the first time, representatives from the majority of governments in the world came to the conclusion that basic human rights must be protected , not only for the sake of the individuals and countries involved, but to preserve the human race .Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.-- Dwight D. EisenhowerPresident of the United States"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."

-- Albert Einstein

HUMAN RIGHTS ADV.—IMPACT EXT.

Survival of the species is only possible by respecting Human RightsAnnas et al 02 Edward R. Utley Prof. and Chair Health Law @ Boston U. School of Public Health and Prof. SocioMedical Sciences and Community Science @ Boston U. School of Medicine and Prof. Law @ Boston U. School of Law [George, Lori Andrews, (Distinguished Prof. Law @ Chicago-Kent College of Law and Dir. Institute for Science, Law, and Technology @ Illinois Institute Tech), and Rosario M. Isasa, (Health Law and Biotethics Fellow @ Health Law Dept. of Boston U. School of Public Health), American Journal of Law & Medicine, “THE GENETICS REVOLUTION: CONFLICTS, CHALLENGES AND CONUNDRA: ARTICLE: Protecting the Endangered Human: Toward an International Treaty Prohibiting Cloning and Inheritable Alterations”, 28 Am. J. L. and Med. 151, L/N]

The development of the atomic bomb not only presented to the world for the first time the prospect of total annihilation, but also, paradoxically, led to a renewed emphasis on the "nuclear family," complete with its personal bomb shelter. The conclusion of World War II (with the dropping of the only two atomic bombs ever used in war) led to the recognition that world wars were now suicidal to the entire species and to the formation of the United Nations with the primary goal of preventing such wars. n2 Prevention, of course, must be based on the recognition that all humans are fundamentally the same, rather than on an emphasis on our differences. In the aftermath of the Cuban missile crisis, the closest the world has ever come to nuclear war, President John F. Kennedy, in an address to the former Soviet Union, underscored the necessity for recognizing similarities for our survival: [L]et us not be blind to our differences, but let us also direct attention to our common interests and the means by which those differences can be resolved . . . . For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet . We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal. n3 That we are all fundamentally the same, all human, all with the same dignity and rights, is at the core of the most important document to come out of World War II, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the two treaties that followed it (together known as the "International Bill of Rights"). n4 The recognition of universal human rights, based on human dignity and equality as well as the principle of nondiscrimination, is fundamental to the development of a species consciousness. As Daniel Lev of Human Rights Watch/Asia said in 1993, shortly before the Vienna Human Rights Conference: Whatever else may separate them, human beings belong to a single biological species, the simplest and most fundamental commonality before which the significance of human differences quickly fades. . . . We are all capable, in exactly the same ways, of feeling pain, hunger, [*153] and a hundred kinds of deprivation. Consequently, people nowhere routinely concede that those with enough power to do so ought to be able to kill, torture, imprison, and generally abuse others. . . . The idea of universal human rights shares the recognition of one common humanity, and provides a minimum solution to deal with its miseries. n5 Membership in the human species is central to the meaning and enforcement of human rights, and respect for basic human rights is essential for the survival of the human species. The development of the concept of "crimes against humanity" was a milestone for universalizing human rights in that it recognized that there were certain actions, such as slavery and genocide, that implicated the welfare of the entire species and therefore merited universal condemnation. n6 Nuclear weapons were immediately seen as a technology that required international control, as extreme genetic manipulations like cloning and inheritable genetic alterations have come to be seen today. In fact, cloning and inheritable genetic alterations can be seen as crimes against humanity of a unique sort: they are techniques that can alter the essence of humanity itself (and thus threaten to change the foundation of human rights) by taking human evolution into our own hands and directing it toward the development of a new species, sometimes

termed the "posthuman." n7 It may be that species-altering techniques, like cloning and inheritable genetic modifications, could provide benefits to the human species in extraordinary circumstances. For example, asexual genetic replication could potentially save humans from extinction if all humans were rendered sterile by some catastrophic event. But no such necessity currently exists or is on the horizon.