The US and Canada have passed it to freeze Russian assets in their country tied to crimes and human rights abuses (I don’t know if Estonias law does the same, don’t know).
But with Putin’s Russia screwing with the elections in Germany, France, UK, etc. why are these nations not passing the Magnitsky act also to retaliate?
Why isn’t this seen as a NATO issue, Russia is messing with a lot of NATO countries, why don’t they unify and all pass the Magnitsky act to freeze Putin’s assets to retaliate for Putin’s interferece?
FWIW, I’m not talking about an actual war between NATO and Russia. However this seems like the kind of thing all NATO countries should be doing to get back at Russia for how they’ve been acting (invading the Ukraine, messing with elections, etc).
If a bunch of nations do pass the act, couldn’t Russia just invest everything in Japan and China instead?
If you want to put pressure on the US for human rights abuses, feel free.
As a matter of fact, a lot of us here would welcome it. If the EU demanded the US implement universal health care, close Gitmo, investigate torture, hold the banks accountable for fraud, etc. we aren’t going to complain.
When Canada demanded the US stop its anti-union efforts under NAFTA I thought that was nice.
EU would rather have a peaceful relationship with Russia because it feels their economic, political and social success can be easily hindered by Moscow. Last month, a Finnish senior official stated that Nordic countries were deeply interested in becoming friends with the largest country in the world. In fact, NATO itself has urged Georgia to improve its ties with Russia if it wants to join the organization.
It is not easy and solutions can’t be straightforward when dealing with such a big competitor.
Why would the Spanish parliament pass a law in English?
First thing you’d need is someone to propose the local equivalent. Who can do that and who would do that will vary by country. Some countries simply would never include such a thing in their own laws, it’s not part of the legal structures; others already have the situation covered under current laws and see no need to make a specific law for every single little item (American laws tend to be a lot more piecemeal than Spanish or French ones, to mention a couple). Most countries consider that once you already have a law indicating that their government can seize assets linked to a crime, they don’t need:
a law to indicate they can seize assets linked to robbery without violence,
one to say they can seize assets linked to armed robbery,
another for robbery under threats,
a different one for crimes against public health,
and two hundred different versions of each depending on the nationality or nationalities of the culprits.
Depending on the country’s laws, they may even require the crime to be under investigation before assets can be frozen or temporarily seized, and proven before they can be permanently seized. No “give me all the dinero you’re carrying in your truck-o, comperrende?”
This little finger bought an egg,
this little finger cracked an egg,
this little finger fried an egg,
this little finger added salt,
and this fat fat finger ate the whole egg!
Sometimes American laws sound like that, except you guys may also happen to have two fingers doing the same thing, two laws on the same subject and they can be redundant or contradictory (yeeeeey!).
This isn’t a debate on whether the European Union or the United States has a better human rights record.
The topic is human rights in Russia. Anyone claiming that America’s human rights history is anywhere close to as bad as Russia’s will deservedly be laughed at.
No, the topic as set out in the OP is “states other than the US; why haven’t they done what the US has done?” Which makes a comparison between the approach of the US and the approach of other nations to the vindication and enforcement of human rights entirely apt.
Only if you go back to the Soviet era, which I understand, many older folks still believe we are in. The US has had a substantially worse record in the last few decades, while sadly Alzheimer’s cases have increased in the US. Currently the US is involved with much horror in Yemen for example.
Anyway, comparing human rights records of the two governments is relevant because if the US is viewed as lacking credibility on that front it could cause others to view the Magnitsky Act as a hollow political ploy caked with propaganda.
If the United States was imposing sanctions against Britain or France or Germany for human rights violations then there would be a valid issue of whether those nations have a better or worse human rights record than America does. But that is not what’s happening and it is not the topic of this thread.
The United States is imposing sanctions against Russia. So the issue is whether America has a better human rights record than Russia has and therefore has the moral authority to take action on this issue. The answer to both questions is “yes, we do.”
While the Soviet Union had a horrendous human rights record during the Stalin era and a deplorable human rights record under the rest of the Soviet era, Russia’s current human rights record under Putin stands as deplorable on its own merits. Far worse than the American human rights record. So America has the credibility to point out Russia’s human rights violations.
No, It’s not even close. I will make a short list off the top:
Iraq sanctions
Iraq war
Afganistan war
Libyan bombing
Role of AFRICOM in destabilization of Africa
Yemen
Drone strikes, including drone strikes of US citizens without due process (president had a “kill list”, maybe Trump does too:confused:)
Ukrainian coup/ support of vicious war against the ethnic Russians*
Mass imprisonment
CIA kidnapping*
systematic torture*
mass surveillance
silencing of dissidents (whistleblowers if you like your American media euphemisms)*
Iranian sanctions
Support of Syrian rebels
heavy taxation
*The Russian government may have the US govt beat on these, so we can call those a wash if you like.
But the question raised in the OP is not why the US has passed the Magnitsky Act, or whether it should have done so. The question is why other nations, other NATO members, have not done so. This clearly invites a comparison of the different approaches to human rights enforcement of the US and other NATO member states.
It may be clear to you but I have to admit I’m not seeing the point you’re making. How does America’s human rights record affect what policy European countries take on Russia’s human rights record?
I could see the point if somebody was arguing that America’s human rights record was worse than Russia’s and therefore it would be hypocritical for Europe to place sanctions against Russia if they weren’t also placing them against the United States. But as I written, I do not see this as the case.
The OP doesn’t ask what policy European countries take on Russia’s human rights record; it specifically asks why they don’t pass the Magnitsky Act. In other words, it takes the US policy in this regard as the standard against which other countries are to be measured. How does that not open up a comparison of the ways in which the US and other countries enforce international human rights? That’s the whole thrust of the OP.
Note that what’s at issue here is not “America’s human rights record” in terms of its own actions which breach or may breach human rights; it’s America’s record of acting against other countries for breaches of human rights.
I think your first contribution to the thread was exactly on point; if European countries have been less vigorous in penalising the Russians for their breaches, it’s because they have more to lose by doing so; they are substantially dependent on Russia for energy supplies. So I don’t think accepting the OP’s invitation to compare the position of the US and other countries automatically translates into a US-bashing session.
You could also generalise the question. What the Magnitsky Act does that is novel or unusual is that, instead of targetting a country or its residents for sanctions, it targets a narrowly-draw group of individuals who are particularly complicit in wrongdoing. Leaving aside for the moment the application of this tactic to Russians, you could ask whether other countries should adopt this tactic (more than they already do) as a response to human rights abuses.
Indeed, you could also ask whether the US should adopt it as a response to abuses in countries other than Russia. As the title suggests, the Magnitsky Act is very much focussed on a particular set of abuses in a particular country. That does open up the possiblity that human rights will be vindicated only selectively, where it is advantageous or popular to do so. Should we be happpy about this?
So, all kinds of interesting questions are opened up by the OP. What isn’t opened up is whether Russia is guilty of human rights abuses. The OP more or less takes it for granted that it is.
It’s not even a question of it being ‘Russia’ - any country moving from a centrist regime into early/proto-capitalism and democracy goes through decades of difficulties as the voting franchise matures and the state is reordered.
In contrast, we have the human rights abuses of a mature empire, both domestic and international.