CSW welcomes introduction of European Union Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime

CSW welcomes the adoption on 7 December of a decision and regulation by the European Union (EU) that establishes an EU Global Sanctions Regime. The regime is informally known as the EU-styled Magnitsky Act, after the US model that preceded it.

The regime will enable the EU to impose EU-wide travel bans on individual human rights abusers and to freeze their assets. It was the first major act of policy announced by the then newly-appointed EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell, in December 2019 and means that the EU joins the US, Canada and the UK, which have similar sanctions regimes.

The fact that the regime enables the targeting of specific individuals responsible for violations of human rights could have significant implications for individuals in many of the countries CSW works on. For example, the US Magnitsky Act has been used to impose sanctions on those responsible for violations in China’s Uyghur Region.

CSW’s Founder President Mervyn Thomas said: “CSW welcomes the new European Union Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime as another tool for the EU to uphold and protect human rights worldwide. Its comprehensive and relatively swift agreement by the 27 EU Member States is an encouraging indication that despite economic and political differences there is a common belief in human rights as the basic tenet of democratic governance among Member States. It is our hope that countries that have adopted global sanctions regimes will work together to ensure that human rights abusers are effectively challenged, and engage in civil society consultation to render these measures as effective as possible.”

Note to Editors:

1.The US Magnitsky Act was signed by President Barack Obama in 2012 and was originally designed to target Russian officials who were responsible for the death of the Russian tax lawyer Sergei Magnitsky. In the case of the EU, the new sanctions regime will not bear the name of the Russian tax lawyer but rather come to be officially known as the ‘EU Global Sanctions Regime’.