European Commission finally delivers its proposal for a global #Magnitsky Act for Europe

Today (20 October) Maroš Šefčovič, Vice President of the European Commission announced that the European Commission was finally able to put forward a joint proposal for a Council Regulation concerning implementation of restrictive measures sanctions against serious human rights violation and abuses worldwide, a so-called “Magnitsky Act” for Europe.

The EU High Representative, Josep Borrell, initially launched its preparatory work on this on 9 December 2019, the work was openly based on equivalent legislation in the United States.
Similar legislation has been adopted in the UK, Canada and the Baltic states.

The European Parliament has been a staunch supporter of a European Magnitsky Act for some time, adopting a resolution in March 2019. The news has also been welcome by the Netherlands, which was a prominent supporter of the initiative.

The proposal differs from the existing EU geographically limited sanctions regimes, one of the advantages of the Magnitsky approach is that it can target individual human rights violators globally, unrelated to the political context and intergovernmental developments and could be applied to non-state actors.