In 2016, Congress passed the Global Magnitsky Act, which seeks to prohibit the worst foreign human rights offenders and most corrupt officials operating anywhere in the world from entering into the United States and to block their U.S. assets. This law requires that each year on December 10 (Human Rights Day), or the first day Congress is in session thereafter, the President submit a report to Congress that includes a list of each foreign person sanctioned under the law during the preceding year.
The anti-corruption provisions are of particular interest given how wide-ranging and unprecedented they are as a tool to combat kleptocracy. While combating corruption has traditionally focused on internal reforms and best practices, the Global Magnitsky Act enables the United States to target those individuals who steal from their populations and abuse the global financial system as well as those who facilitate their grand corruption.
This briefing provided an overview of the scourge of corruption in the OSCE region and how the Global Magnitsky Act can be employed to combat it. It included a discussion of the types of individuals and groups that should come under consideration for placement on the sanctions list and the ramifications of any such placement.
