Today, a coalition of 29 organizations called on Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin to robustly implement sanctions in 2018 under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act. The call came in a letter, organized by Human Rights First, from human rights and anti-corruption non-governmental organizations (NGOs), including the Joint Baltic American National Committee (JBANC) and its three parent organizations, the Estonian American National Council (EANC), the American Latvian Association (ALA), and the Lithuanian American Council (LAC).
The Global Magnitsky Act is the most comprehensive human rights and anti-corruption sanctions tool in U.S. history. Under the act, the U.S. government may sanction foreign individuals and entities found to have committed gross violations of human rights or to have engaged in significant acts of corruption by subjecting designees to asset freezes and visa restrictions. On December 21, 2017, President Trump signed Executive Order 13818, entitled “Blocking the Property of Persons Involved in Serious Human Rights Abuse or Corruption.” The order expands the scope of who may be sanctioned under the Global Magnitsky Act, giving the U.S. government the power to sanction any foreign person found to be responsible for or complicit in serious human rights abuses and acts of corruption.
The coalition plans to continue to provide information in order to help move the implementation process forward. Read more here.
