Posts Tagged ‘rule of law’
U.S. Senator Calls to Support Civil Society on Sergei Magnitsky’s Anniversary
U.S. Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD), Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and author of the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act (Public Law 112-208), issued a statement ahead of the sixth anniversary of Sergei Magnitsky’s murder.
“November 16th marks the sixth anniversary of the brutal death of Sergei Magnitsky, the courageous voice against Russian corruption who was imprisoned and tortured in a Russian prison for 358 days before his death. On this anniversary, we must remember the principles of truth, justice, and the rule of law that drove Sergei, a 37-year-old tax lawyer, husband and father working for an American firm in Moscow, to expose the largest known tax fraud in Russian history.
As we honor Sergei’s life, we must recommit ourselves to supporting human rights and the rule of law globally despite an ever more dangerous space for independent voices and civil society in far too many nations.”
Senator Cardin is the author of the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, a bill that would ensure human rights abusers and corrupt officials worldwide are denied entry into the United States and barred from using our financial institutions. The bill was approved by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in July. The legislation would expand the Russia-specific sanctions in the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act (Public Law 112-208) and apply it globally. срочный займ на карту онлайн займ онлайн на карту без отказа https://zp-pdl.com https://zp-pdl.com/get-quick-online-payday-loan-now.php hairy women
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US Criticizes Russian Justice on Lawyer Death Anniversary
Global Post. Agence France-Presse on Nov 13, 2015 @ 9:24 PM
The United States lamented Russia’s failure Friday to punish those responsible for the death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, on the sixth anniversary of his murky demise in a Moscow jail.
Magnitsky died aged 37 after trying to expose the alleged embezzlement from investment fund Hermitage Capital of $230 million by figures linked to Russian political circles.
He was arrested in 2008 and died in prison in 2009 of an untreated illness that Russia’s own presidential human rights council said was “provoked by beating.”
The wider Hermitage case is now a notorious international scandal, but six years later no-one in Russia has been held to account for Magnitsky’s death.
“The anniversary of Sergei Magnitsky’s death is a reminder of the human cost of injustice,” US State Department deputy spokesman Mark Toner said.
“Those responsible for his unjust imprisonment and wrongful death remain free, despite widely publicized and credible evidence of their guilt,” he said.
“We salute Sergei Magnitsky’s memory and those who work to uncover corruption and promote human rights in Russia, despite official intimidation and harassment.
“We will continue to fully support the efforts of those who seek to bring these individuals to justice, including through implementation of the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2012.”
The Magnitsky Act targets named Russian individuals accused of a role in the Hermitage scandal, prohibiting them from traveling to the United States or using US banks. займ на карту онлайн hairy girls https://www.zp-pdl.com https://zp-pdl.com/online-payday-loans-cash-advances.php hairy woman
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Rep. James McGovern to Join the Bipartisan Policy Center For Policy Discussion on U.S. – Russia Trade Relations and Human Rights
7 May 2012, 13:15 GMT, PR Newswire (U.S.) [337 Words]
WASHINGTON, May 7, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — With Russia’s entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO), the U.S. could be at a commercial and political disadvantage if it does not graduate Russia from the Jackson-Vanik amendment and grant it permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) status. At the same time, many policymakers and experts have serious concerns about shortcomings on human rights and the rule of law in Russia, and favor an approach to Russia that addresses those concerns.
Following its recent analysis on the subject, the Bipartisan Policy Center’s (BPC) Foreign Policy Project (FPP) will hold a policy discussion on Wednesday, May 9, 2012 to discuss the future of U.S.-Russian relations. The event will focus on building a more constructive bilateral relationship with Russia, including promoting Russian human rights, rule of law, democracy, transparency, civil society and commercial engagements.
WHO: Representative James McGovern (D-MA), Co-Chairman, Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission Bill Browder, CEO, Hermitage Capital Management Celeste Drake, Trade Policy Specialist, AFL-CIO David Kramer, President, Freedom House Dr. Michael Makovsky, Director, BPC Foreign Policy Project Christopher Wenk, Senior Director of International Policy, Chamber of Commerce Jackson Diehl, Moderator; Deputy Editorial Page Editor, The Washington Post WHAT: BPC Policy Discussion on the Future of U.S. – Russian Relations
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Kerry delays action on Magnitsky bill
Foreign Policy
Posted By Josh Rogin Tuesday, April 24, 2012 – 1:00 PM
A bill to sanction Russian human rights violators will not be taken up by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee this week after the Obama administration urged Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry (D-MA) to keep it off the committee’s agenda, The Cable has learned.
Last month, Kerry indicated that the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2011 would be brought up for a vote at the April 26 SFRC business meeting and he also endorsed the idea of combining the Magnitsky bill with a bill to grant Russia Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) status and repeal the 1974 Jackson-Vanik law. “In good faith, we will move as rapidly as we can, hopefully the minute we’re back, but certainly shortly thereafter,” Kerry said March 27, just before the last Senate recess.
But after what several Senate aides described as intense lobbying from top Obama administration officials, including Deputy National Security Advisor Denis McDonough and Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman, Kerry decided not to put the bill on the agenda of the next business meeting, delaying consideration of the bill until May at the earliest, after the visit to the U.S. of Russian President-elect Vladimir Putin.
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Prosecuting the Dead: Part II
JURIST Contributing Editor David Crane of Syracuse University College of Law says the enactment of the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act will be an important practical and symbolic act showing that the US government acknowledges the long slide of the Russian people back into anarchy and lawlessness…
Russia has attempted to cover up, gloss over and sweep under the rug the fact that they seized a young Russian lawyer named Sergei Magnitsky off the street, tortured him in a year-long detention without a hearing or trial and allowed him to languish and die in prison, all for calling the Russian government out on a vast tax fraud scheme in the amount of over $250 million.
Over these past few years, the Russian government has gone after Magnitsky’s former employer, Hermitage Fund, his boss, William Browder and even his mother in attempts to bring silence to a growing call for justice by the international community. Futile gestures and “investigations” have led to no real findings of fact nor an open hearing on those facts to determine accountability. Time and time again they have concluded no real harm and have tried to drop the case.
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Resetting the Reset
What’s behind Obama’s push against the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act?
MICHAEL WEISS
April 13, 2012
For all his pretensions of being a “transformative” president, Barack Obama’s foreign policy prescriptions are rooted in a deeply conservative and nostalgic tradition. When it comes to Russia, the tradition this White House channels most is that of Richard Nixon. This seemingly incongruous resemblance was well illustrated in a recent controversy over the nullification of a Nixon-era piece of legislation, the Jackson-Vanik amendment, which binds U.S. trade relations with autocratic regimes to those regimes’ human rights records. Jackson-Vanik is the thorn in the side of Obama’s “reset” policy with Russia, which wants to accede to the World Trade Organization—a major component of the reset. So long as Jackson-Vanik still applies to Russia, American businesses won’t be able to fully profit from that accession. President Obama’s push to repeal Jackson-Vanik has been described as cynical and manipulative by both the veteran Russian dissidents who benefitted from its passage in the 1970s and the younger generation of oppositionists who seek new instruments of American leverage against Vladimir Putin.
The Jackson-Vanik amendment was originally bundled into Title IV of the 1974 Trade Act and restricts bilateral trade with non-market economies on the basis of their allowance of foreign emigration. Written in categorical language and conceived by the late Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson (D-WA) as a counterweight to Henry Kissinger’s policy of detente with Leonid Brezhnev, the amendment was clearly designed to punish the Soviet Union for refusing to grant emigration visas to its embattled minorities, particularly Jews. The Final Act of the Helsinki Accords was signed the following year, committing the Warsaw Pact nations to conforming to international human rights norms. Brezhnev thought that basket wouldn’t matter so much as the one over which the toughest negotiations about the Final Act depended: “Questions Relating to Security in Europe”, a suite of ten principles that respected the territorial integrity of member states as well as a policy of nonintervention in their internal affairs. Brezhnev was confident that the human rights component would be quietly ignored: Kissinger told him so.
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Limiting Russia’s Sovereign Democracy
Ever since Kremlin first deputy chief of staff Vladislav Surkov introduced the term “sovereign democracy” in 2006, senior government officials have claimed that the West does not have a right to meddle in Russia’s domestic affairs, particularly regarding human rights issues. But according to the post-World War II paradigm governing international law, gross human rights abuses are a global concern, regardless of where they occur.
Russia’s interpretation of national sovereignty is back in the spotlight after the Western coalition started bombing Libya last month. Although the military intervention was approved by United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973, with Russia abstaining, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin likened it to medieval crusades and said the West should not interfere in “internal political conflicts.”
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In Moscow, Biden gets specific on corruption
Vice President Biden heaped praise on Russia on Thursday, calling it a nation of great creativity, great culture and great engineering, but he said it would have to get its legal house in order if it expected to attract more foreign business and investment.
In a formal speech at Moscow State University, Biden mentioned two of Russia’s most notorious recent cases involving business and the courts – those of imprisoned oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky and lawyer and whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky, who died in a Moscow jail cell in 2009 – and then said that “no amount of cheerleading” would lure back “wronged and nervous investors.”
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