Yahoo News Yahoo News explains: How America keeps global powers in check
We’ve heard a lot about the U.S. imposing sanctions on foreign powers lately. America has threatened to hit countries from Saudi Arabia to Russia and China with tough penalties for human rights violations.
The Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act, named after a Russian lawyer who died in prison after he uncovered a massive corruption scandal in Russia’s government, was enacted in 2012 by then-President Barack Obama.
The act mandated that the U.S. government could freeze the assets and restrict the travel of anyone who committed gross human rights violations in Russia.
The original law was updated and became the Global Magnitsky Act, allowing the president to impose these sanctions on human rights violators anywhere, not just in Russia.
Congress included a provision in the new act mandating that the president must respond to requests to ban violators within four months.
This month, a bipartisan group sent a letter to President Trump requesting sanctions on those responsible for the disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Trump said he didn’t want to cancel his $110 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia over the Virginia resident’s disappearance.
Russian President Vladimir Putin reportedly sent someone to Trump Tower in 2016 to negotiate with the president-elect about repealing the act once he got in office.
Other senators wanted to use the Global Magnitsky Act to push for sanctions on China over its repression and surveillance of its citizens.
A version of the Global Magnitsky Act is now law in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
It’s been successfully used to punish:
Burmese generals guilty of ethnic cleansing
Nicaraguan security operatives who engaged in corruption
While the original act was written to punish a few, the Global Magnitsky Act may be America’s gateway to stopping human rights violators.
