Posts Tagged ‘congress’
Moscow vows ‘response’ if U.S. passes bill named for whistleblower
The U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee approved a bill this week that would blacklist several dozen Russian officials linked to the November 2009 death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.
The Kremlin has responded vehemently to the proposed action, promising to blacklist certain U.S. officials from entering Russia.
Magnitsky was a lawyer who worked for the UK-based Hermitage Capital Management firm in Russia.
In that capacity, he accused Russian tax and police officials of embezzling $230 million and was arrested by Russian police. He was beaten to death while in police custody, triggering an uproar from Russian and international human rights groups.
The Kremlin has tried to cover up the crime and has refused to cooperate with independent investigations.
The outrage reverberated in Washington. Last year, a group of U.S. senators led by John McCain (R-AZ) introduced a bill that would blacklist Russian officials involved in the case from entering the United States. unshaven girls hairy woman https://zp-pdl.com/get-a-next-business-day-payday-loan.php https://zp-pdl.com/online-payday-loans-cash-advances.php срочный займ
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US: New Bill Sanctions Magnitsky Officials
The United States House of Representatives unanimously passed a bill on Thursday to impose sanctions on a group of Russian officials connected to the death of Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian anti-graft lawyer who died in a Russian prison.
Magnitsky was arrested in November 2008 on charges of tax evasion, days after he accused Russian state tax authorities of participating in a $230 million tax refund fraud. He died a year later in a Moscow pre-trial detention center.
According to the US Committee of Foreign Affairs, the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2012 will impose “sanctions [visa ban and asset freeze] on those responsible for the harassment, abuse, and death of Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian lawyer who was murdered during his investigation of corruption in the Russian government.”
The bill was introduced in April, by the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission co-chairman Jim McGovern.
The opponents of the bill expressed fears that the new legislation would have a negative effect on the US-Russia relations, and could harm US exports to Russia. The U.S. National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC) urged the Congress on Wednesday to oppose the bill.
According to the NFTC President Bill Reinsch “The Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act is seriously flawed.” He adds that “This legislation would harm U.S. relations with Russia and many other nations, and would jeopardize the significant benefits arising from Russian concessions during its WTO accession negotiations.”
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US House Committee of Foreign Affairs votes Unanimously for the Sergey Magnitsky Bill
International Criminal Law Bureau
The human rights situation in Russia has long held a position in the agenda of the international human rights community. While several inter-governmental institutions and States have denounced the stifling of free speech and freedom of assembly, the harassment of journalists, the disappearances and the torture, any effort to tackle these issues cannot be described by such institutions and league of states as anything else than a failure. Upon an exposed disappearance one can count on strong words by the EU, the US and others. One can also count on the fact that not one government official will call their counterparts in Moscow and press them to investigate and bring those responsible to justice. Russia is a country with increasing number of middle class consumers and rich in natural resources. The conventional wisdom goes that Europe and US need the trade with Russia. This wisdom also trusts that the problems with human rights never spill into the area of international business. On 16 November 2009 this was proven wrong.
Sergei Leonidovich Magnitsky died on that day in the Matrosskaya Tishina Prison in Moscow, Russia. He was a young, bright tax-lawyer, working for an internationallaw firm Firestone Duncan in Moscow. He loved his job. He loved his country. When he noticed that some corrupt officials were trying to steal $230,000,000 from their client, the Hermitage Capital Management fund, he reported this to the police. Instead of investigating this, the authorities had Sergey arrested. In prison they pressured him to sign a declaration to the effect that his report was false. He refused. On the evening of 16 November, the ambulance crew waited outside his prison door until he was dead. He had endured nearly 12 months of abuse.
The authorities thought that as with their other sanctioned acts of barbarism, the storm of criticism over this would also blow over in time. But after over two years, it remains on the global front page.
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Human rights concerns complicate efforts to ramp up Russia trade
The Hill
Congress, the Obama administration and business groups are ramping up efforts to pave the way this summer for improved trade relations with Russia, but that work is being complicated by parallel efforts to address human rights concerns in that country.
While the push is being made to repeal the Jackson-Vanik amendment and grant permanent normal trade relations, some lawmakers are also eager to pass a measure designed to signal to Moscow that human rights and national security violations won’t be tolerated as that nation prepares to join the World Trade Organization (WTO).
In the ever complicated realm of U.S.-Russia relations, supporters of repealing Jackson-Vanik — a 37-year-old provision designed to put pressure on Communist nations for human-rights abuses and emigration policies — are emphasizing that Russia’s entry into the WTO does not require the U.S. to pass any additional measures .
The United States gives up nothing and won’t be required to change its laws, said Edward Gerwin, senior fellow for trade and global economic policy at Third Way, told The Hill.
Not only are normal trade relations denied to nations that restrict emigration, but without a repeal, U.S. businesses would lose the benefits derived from a more open Russian market, putting companies at a competitive disadvantage.
We’re not rewarding the Russians, Gerwin said. From a policy standpoint keeping Jackson-Vanik doesn’t get us anywhere, he said.
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House panel backs “Magnitsky” sanctions on Russia
A congressional committee unanimously approved on Thursday a measure to penalize Russian officials for human rights abuses, adding to tensions with Moscow and complicating White House efforts to pass Russian trade legislation in the coming months.
The House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee approved on a voice vote the “Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act,” named for a 37-year-old anti-corruption lawyer who worked for the equity fund Hermitage Capital. His 2009 death after a year in Russian jails spooked investors and blackened Russia’s image abroad.
The measure has bipartisan support among lawmakers but its prospects for passage in Congress remain uncertain.
The measure would require the United States to deny visas and freeze the assets of Russians linked to Magnitsky’s death. The Obama administration already has imposed visa restrictions on some Russians believed to have been involved in Magnitsky’s death, but kept their names quiet.
The bill would make public the list of alleged offenders, broaden it to include other abusers of human rights in Russia and prohibit them from doing their banking in U.S. institutions.
Russian officials have warned that the bill would harm American-Russian relations, and U.S. business groups say it could hurt their interests in Russia.
The White House worries the bill will get embroiled in President Barack Obama’s efforts to reap the trade benefits of Russia’s looming entry into the World Trade Organization, a key achievement of the “reset” in U.S.-Russia ties of recent years.
Approval by the panel was just the first step in advancing the Magnitsky bill by Democratic Representative Jim McGovern through the Republican-controlled House. Before it can get a vote of the full House, two more committees must approve it or waive jurisdiction. The Democratic-controlled Senate has not acted on a similar bill by Senator Ben Cardin, a Democrat.
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Pass the Magnitsky Bill
I don’t often agree with Elliott Abrams against the Obama Administration — but the Magnitsky bill creates strange bedfellows.
The bill is named after a young Russian lawyer, who was tortured and died in prison for trying to blow the whistle on government fraud. It would impose travel bans to the U.S. and financial sanctions on anyone responsible for extrajudicial killings, torture or other gross violations of human-rights against individuals trying to defend human rights or who are seeking to expose illegal activity carried out by officials of the Russian government.
Sounds pretty important in a country that has become one of the leading murderers of journalists, and that is trail blazing the 21st century version of authoritarianism at home, and support for noxious regimes like Syria abroad. And by pinpointing sanctions against those carrying out abuse, it takes a page out of the smart sanctions book that has improved our leverage against countries by letting us target the real wrongdoers, not the general public.
But the Magnitsky bill is even more vital. The Administration wants Russia to join the World Trade Organization. To do that, we need to drop the Cold War Jackson-Vanik legislation that tied trade to allowing Jews and those persecuted by the former Soviet Union to emigrate — since linking issues that way is against WTO rules. This bill lets us get at human rights in Russia another way.
The Administration isn’t supportive — and that’s a real missed opportunity. Research on organizations like the WTO show that they allow outside countries to exercise immense leverage on domestic issues — but only during the negotiation stage. In other words, we can use the WTO to push Russia for some real reforms in its rule of law — but as soon as they are in, we lose that leverage.
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Congress advances bill to pressure Russia on human rights
A bill that would impose sanctions on Russians who commit human rights violations moved ahead in the U.S. Congress on Thursday despite resistance from the Obama administration and angry denunciations from Kremlin officials.
The Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act, named in memory of a corruption-fighting Russian who worked for an American law firm and died in police custody, was approved by the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Two more committees must weigh in before a vote of the entire House, and the Senate has yet to act on its version.
Magnitsky, a tax adviser for the Hermitage Capital investment company, was 37 when he died here in pretrial detention in 2009. After discovering that stolen Hermitage documents were being used to plunder $230 million from the Russian treasury through a fraudulent tax return, Magnitsky accused tax and police officials of the crime. They charged him instead, and nearly a year later he died in custody, his body marked by signs of beating.
Since then the affair has become deeply entangled in ever complicated U.S.-Russian relations. Human rights advocates have lobbied hard for the bill, which requires publicly naming those Russians connected to the case, denying them visas and freezing their assets. The State Department would have to deliver yearly reports on enforcement.
The Obama administration has been deeply critical of Russia’s refusal to hold anyone accountable for Magnitsky’s ill treatment and death, but it has argued that a secret visa blacklist it drew up last summer is more effective and avoids publicly challenging Moscow.
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U.S.–Russia Trade and the Magnitsky Act
Today, the House Foreign Affairs Committee unanimously approved the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act (H.R. 4405), a measure designed to promote human rights in Russia. The committee’s vote has important implications for both human rights and international trade.
In a few months, Russia will become a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO). U.S. businesses will not be able to benefit from the concessions Russia made to join the WTO unless Congress first repeals the Jackson–Vanik Amendment, a powerful tool that the U.S. successfully used to promote human rights in Soviet Russia and other countries that restricted emigration during the Cold War. Failure to repeal Jackson–Vanik could place U.S. companies at a disadvantage while other WTO members benefit from significantly increased access to the Russian economy.
Regrettably, the Obama Administration did not work with Congress to resolve these issues before agreeing to Russia’s accession to the WTO. Now, Russian accession will put U.S. businesses at a disadvantage in Russia until Congress repeals Jackson–Vanik.
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Magnitsky Bill Clears First Hurdle in US Congress
On Thursday morning, by a unanimous voice vote, the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs approved a bill that offers a rare example of congressional bipartisanship. The Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act, cosponsored by leading Republicans and Democrats in both houses of Congress, deals with an issue that the current and previous administrations were too timid (or too calculating) to address seriously: human rights violations in Russia. The bill drew the Kremlin’s attention as no other US congressional initiative has in years—perhaps not since the 1974 Jackson-Vanik amendment, which linked US-Soviet trade to the freedom of emigration. Hours after his inauguration on May 7th, Russia’s reinstated president, Vladimir Putin, signed a decree tasking his diplomats with “preventing the introduction of unilateral extraterritorial sanctions by the United States of America against Russian legal entities and individuals”—a thinly veiled reference to the Magnitsky Act.
Sergei Magnitsky was a Moscow lawyer who died in custody in 2009 after reportedly being tortured and denied access to medical care. A year earlier, he uncovered a $230 million tax fraud scheme—the largest known in Russian history—which involved the previously seized assets of Hermitage Capital Management, an investment fund he was representing. Magnitsky’s testimony implicated several law enforcement officials. The result was his own arrest. Almost three years after Magnitsky’s death, not one of the perpetrators has been punished: on the contrary, a number of interior ministry officials involved in his case have received awards and promotions. Indeed, the most prominent criminal investigation in Russia involving Magnitsky has been, astonishingly, the ongoing posthumous case against him.
The Magnitsky Act, which now advances to the House floor, proposes a targeted visa ban and asset freeze against individuals “responsible for the detention, abuse, or death of Sergei Magnitsky,” as well as for any “extrajudicial killings, torture, or other gross violations of internationally recognized human rights” in Russia. It is in defense of these fine citizens that Putin has mobilized the full force of his diplomacy. Both Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and the Kremlin’s top foreign policy adviser, Yuri Ushakov, have called the bill “anti-Russian,” and threatened unspecified retaliation. Presumably, all those US officials with retirement savings in Russian banks have been put on notice.
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