Posts Tagged ‘jackson-vanik’
McGovern, Kerry tackle the Cold War
When this nation’s founders devised a national legislature, they created two chambers: the House and Senate. Representatives from local jurisdictions would advance more parochial needs; senators would focus on broader strategic issues. The notion of internal checks and balances within the legislative branch itself helped to seal ratification of the Constitution; the House and Senate would work together as well as at cross-purposes.
What wasn’t likely envisioned was that, hundreds of years later, one senator and one congressman from an original colony would serve as counterweights in a debate that involved the Cold War, Jewish immigration, multibillion-dollar companies, and a Russian lawyer who died in his jail cell. Just a few miles apart geographically, with motivations reflecting their conscience as well as status, Massachusetts’ Senator John Kerry and Representative Jim McGovern are key actors in an episode that is as much about constitutional architecture as it is modern day realpolitik.
A vote expected in the Senate on Thursday would grant normalized trade relations with Russia and finally end the Cold War. The bill, after last month’s similar vote in the House, would revoke the 1974 ban, known as Jackson-Vanik, that penalized US-Russian economic investments because of the Soviet Union’s prohibition on emigration for Jews. Times have changed, as have global markets, and the expected Senate approval would create a permanent normal trade relationship with Russia. All this activity is in response to Russia’s entry into the World Trade Organization last August, essentially setting ground rules for foreign access to Russian industries and lowering any import tariffs; the United States doesn’t want to be left behind.
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US Senate Puts Magnitsky Act on Wednesday Agenda
The US Senate will consider on Wednesday a bill which links normalized trade relations with Russia to the so-called “Magnitsky Act,” introducing sanctions for Russian officials deemed to have violated human rights, according to the Senate’s official schedule.
According to the December 5 schedule, the Senate will gather to debate the bill at 23:00 Moscow time [19:00 GMT]. The session is due to end on Wednesday evening [early on Thursday in Moscow].
The legislation simultaneously repeals the Jackson-Vanik restrictions on trade with Russia dating back to 1974 and introduces the Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act imposing visa bans and asset freezes on Russian officials allegedly involved in the torture and death of a 37-year-old Russian anti-corruption lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, as well as in other gross human rights abuses in Russia.
The bill was passed by the House of Representatives on November 16 and is expected to be approved by the Senate. It will then be sent to President Barack Obama for signing.
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Magnitsky: A New Human-Rights Law for Russia—and the World
A young Russian lawyer uncovers what looks like a massive tax fraud. He tells the police. But instead of investigating the alleged crime, the cops—in league with the officials he accuses of perpetrating the fraud—throw the lawyer in jail and subject him to torture. He refuses to retract his accusations, and he’s finally beaten to death. For good measure, he’s prosecuted posthumously for a list of trumped-up crimes. The police who jailed him, meanwhile, are promoted and decorated. Russian officialdom protects its own.
If Russia’s courts won’t bring the guilty parties to justice, who will? The U.S. Congress has just voted to make it America’s job. The Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act (named for the 37-year-old tax lawyer who died three years ago), bars everyone implicated in Magnitsky’s detention, abuse, or death from visiting the U.S., owning property there, or holding a U.S. bank account. The Senate is to pass its bill soon. Similar laws have already been adopted in Canada and across Western Europe.
Those penalties may be scant punishment for murder, but the Magnitsky Act could have outsize consequences. The American and European laws are open-ended, applying not only to the suspects in the Magnitsky case, but to human-rights violators around the world. “We have an opportunity to target those in the Russian, Syrian, and other rogue regimes who resort to torture or extrajudicial killing to silence the voices of freedom and democracy,” says Dominic Raab, a Conservative British member of Parliament. “[They] should not be free to waltz down King’s Road to do their Christmas shopping.”
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Why Obama Should Sign the Magnitsky Act
The U.S. House of Representatives approved the Magnitsky Act last week, legislation that would simultaneously sanction Russian officials implicated in human rights abuses and normalize U.S. trade relations with Russia. The dual nature of the bill may seem at cross purposes, but this is not the case. Increasing trade with Russia and investment in Russia requires the rule of law.
For the past four years, under U.S. President Barack Obama, the “reset” policy has delinked questions of human rights, democracy and rule of law from all other areas of U.S. policy toward Russia. In doing so, it has sent a message that the U.S. may talk about these issues but it will not do anything to discourage abuses.
The Magnitsky Act is a recognition by Congress that the reset policy was a mistake. In 1975, after the U.S. Congress passed the Jackson-Vanik amendment, which withheld U.S. trade benefits to certain countries that restricted emigration, the effects were profound. Year after year, the Soviet Union “paid” to obtain U.S. trade benefits by allowing some of its citizens to emigrate. About 1 million Jews were allowed to leave the Soviet Union, while thousands of other minorities also emigrated. Jackson-Vanik was one of the most successful examples of U.S. human rights legislation. It increased trade and promoted universal human rights.
In August, Russia finally joined the World Trade Organization. According to WTO rules, members may not discriminate against each other, and those members who do are penalized. If the U.S. leaves Jackson-Vanik on the books, Russia can choose to give the U.S. less favorable trade terms with Russia, while U.S. firms that have trade disputes with Russia can be denied access to WTO dispute-resolution mechanisms. That is a situation nobody wants. It’s clear that it is time to repeal Jackson-Vanik and for the U.S. to grant Permanent Normal Trade Relations, or PNTR, to Russia.
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Congress acts to pass landmark human rights measure in memory of murdered Russian lawyer
Three years to the day after an anti-corruption lawyer was tortured to death in Russia, a bill bearing his name and aimed at punishing human rights violators has been passed by the U.S. House of Representatives.
The so-called Sergei Magnitsky amendment, named after the lawyer who died at age 37, passed by a margin of 365 to 43 votes, bringing together hard-line Republicans and liberal Democrats.
President Vladimir Putin’s government has made clear its vehement opposition to the amendment, which the Obama administration has also opposed vigorously, fearing it will damage its ‘reset’ policy of courting Russia.
The amendment, which allows the U.S. to deny visas and freeze the assets of Russian officials believed to be connected to Magnitsky’s death, was passed on Friday as part of a broader measure to normalising trade relations with Russia.
William Browder, an American-born investor who is based in London after being expelled from Russia in 2005, has been a tireless campaigner for the measure in memory of Magnitsky, who acted for him and paid the price with his life.
Principal backers in the House have included Representatives Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida and Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, respectively among the most right-wing and liberal inthe chamber. In the Senate, liberal Ben Cardin and conservatives John McCain and Jon Kyl have banded together.
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Magnitsky Act overcomes further hurdle in US Congress
The US House of Representatives has voted overwhelmingly in favour of the Magnitsky Act, with 365 to 43 in favour of passing the bill.
The vote went in favour of passing the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2012 and a law to grant Russian Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR), a hangover from the Jackson-Vanik amendment to the Trade Act of 1974, which was originally introduced by the US to prevent the former Soviet Union from enjoying PNTR with the US.
The vote was originally scheduled to take place on 3 August before Congress broke for the summer recess, but was postponed until last week.
Bill Browder, the founder of Hermitage Capital Management and a client of lawyer Magnitsky, who died in November 2009 in pre-trial detention, has been instrumental in bringing Magnitsky’s plight to the attention of the US Congress and was in the US on Thursday testifying prior to the vote on Friday.
Browder, who has compiled a dossier of thousands of pages citing evidence of the 60 Russian officials suspected of collusion in Magnitsky’s arrest, torture and subsequent death, told The Lawyer that the latest vote was hugely significant both for the Magnitsky campaign and for eradicating impunity for human rights abuses in Russia more generally.
“It’s the most important piece of human rights legislation since the Jackson Vanik Act 35 years ago and creates real consequences for human rights abusers in Russia,” he said.
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Magnitsky Act Promises to Punish Human Rights Abuse, Open Trade
Last Thursday, the House of Representatives passed a bill that included language—called the Magnitsky Act—that for the first time punishes Russian officials implicated in serious human rights abuses.
The bill was passed by an overwhelming majority—365 to 43—demonstrating strong bipartisan support. The Senate will vote on the Magnitsky Act and the underlying bill during the lame-duck session after the Thanksgiving recess.
The Magnitsky Act is named after the late Moscow lawyer, accountant, and whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky, who in 2009 accused Russian police and tax officials of embezzling $230 million from the Russian treasury. For his “crime” of holding government accountable, Magnitsky was jailed, tortured, denied medical care, and finally beaten to death in his prison cell.
Russian President Vladimir Putin referred to the Magnitsky case as a “tragedy” while vehemently opposing the U.S. legislation named after the whistleblower. Some perpetrators of the Magnitsky persecution even received medals and promotions.
Instead of conducting a proper investigation to bring those responsible for Magnitsky’s death to justice, the Kremlin has threatened to retaliate, accusing the U.S. of meddling in Russia’s internal affairs.
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Sergei’s Law: A Congressional victory for trade and human rights in U.S. relations with Russia.
Bravo, Congress. Seriously. The House has earned this praise after Friday’s legislative victory for trade and human rights.
Passed with a rare bipartisan majority of 365 to 43, H.R. 6165 “normalizes” trade ties with Russia by retiring Jackson-Vanik, a landmark 1974 law that pressed the Soviet Union to liberalize Jewish emigration during the Cold War. The bill will let American investors take advantage of lower tariffs and better protections for intellectual property from Russia’s accession to the World Trade Organization this summer.
But the law will be forever and justly associated with Sergei Magnitsky. The House voted on the third anniversary of the anticorruption activist’s death in a Moscow jail, after months of torture and neglect. Title IV of the trade measure bans Russian officials who commit such abuses from traveling or banking in the U.S. The “Magnitsky Act” is the most consequential piece of human-rights legislation since Jackson-Vanik, and a worthy successor.
The law grew out of the tireless lobbying of William Browder, an American investor who employed Magnitsky, and the persistence of Senator Ben Cardin, the Maryland Democrat who introduced the bill in 2010. It went nowhere at first, as the Obama Administration opposed sanctions in the name of protecting its “reset” in relations with Russia, and Foreign Relations Chairman John Kerry did his best to kill the Magnitsky provision despite bipartisan support.
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House passes Russian trade deal, but Moscow isn’t happy
Ignoring threats of retaliation from Moscow, the House of Representatives passed a long-delayed trade deal with Russia on Friday, adding language aimed at cracking down on human rights abuses.
The agreement, a priority for President Barack Obama and business groups, would permanently normalize trade relations with Russia, allowing the United States to increase ties with a nation that boasts 140 million consumers.
In a rare show of bipartisanship, the House voted 365-43 to approve the bill. It now goes to the Senate, where final passage is expected.
As part of the deal, the House agreed to repeal a 1974 law authored by former Democratic Sen. Henry “Scoop” Jackson of Washington state that had restricted trade with the former Soviet Union because it wasn’t allowing Jews to emigrate.
Supporters said that was no longer an issue and it was time to normalize permanent trade relations with Russia. Currently, trade is allowed on a year-by-year basis if the president certifies that Russia is complying with the 1974 law.
“Today’s Russia is not yesterday’s Soviet Union,” said Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of California, who’s a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
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